


A Primer for the Small Weird Loves

by burnintoash (funnymorning)



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Casual Sex, Friends (Group Members?) With Benefits, M/M, Small references to consensual sex between minors but nothing explicit, Sungwoon is good at sex and bad at love, This is tagged Explicit for a reason kids, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 22:55:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnymorning/pseuds/burnintoash
Summary: Canon compliant AU: Sungwoon is used to hooking up with people in the industry; a mutual understanding between the two parties based on unspoken rules and limits, but none of those people are Daniel and he eventually realises that none of them will get to Sungwoon like Daniel does.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This got way more emo than I intended to and then I out-emo'ed it by naming it after a Richard Siken's poem.

The problem with eleven guys living together in close quarters is the lack of personal privacy, and the strange yet inevitable familiarity that eventually comes with it.

 

Sungwoon is kind of used to it because almost all of his adult life was spent living in one sort of dorm or another. First with Hotshot and then at Produce101 and that is not even counting the short term lodgings he did at the poorly provided dorms in nameless agencies when he was a trainee.

 

But then again, being in Wanna One is a whole new ball court, even when it comes to small things like personal space.

 

Back in Hotshot, it was easier to deal with because there were not eleven of them squashed into a three-room apartment with one bathroom to share. Plus, nights out and the invitation of occasional girlfriend/boyfriend/girl who is a friend/boy who is a friend was a lot easier when you do not have at least twenty fans camped outside their door day and night. Small graces in difficult times, Sungwoon supposes.

 

Living in the Mnet dorm for Produce101 was probably the closest to how things are right now, but even that was not the same. They stayed at the dorm for 2 nights a week – 3 if they are lagging behind schedule and most of the nights were spent practicing and filming solo cuts and trying their best in front of the camera for that one totally unplanned caught-on-the-camera hit moment that will hopefully translate into 20 different Pann posts, so no one really has the time or privilege to be thinking about, well, things that guys normally think about at nights or in early mornings.

 

But now that they are here, just the eleven of them, armed with the assurance that no one will be leaving the dorm at the end of the week, that they are here for good (for the foreseeable future anyway), it is easy for things to get settled into routine. People get used to seeing Sungwoon’s cosmetics all over the bathroom counter or tripping over Jaehwan’s haphazard piles of discarded clothes, or smelling the weird green juice concoction that Minhyun likes to drink every time they open the fridge. They settle into the daily routine of waking up in order or figuring out the most optimal food options to order for late dinner or awkward understanding of private times.

 

It is unbearably hectic and busy. But they are still guys, and half of them are teenagers for crying out loud, and they quickly work out an unspoken understanding among them, like when a room door is locked from the inside despite the fact that the rest of the roommates are not in the room, or when someone is in the shower for far too longer than normal, or when the tissue rolls on desks need replenishment every two days – kind of like a metaphorical red sock if you will. It is not a perfect system, but it works for them, and it stops being awkward after a little while. Sungwoon is so used to waking up in early mornings and facing multiple guys with a visible hard on through their night pants that sometimes he wonders how this even is his real life.

 

“Just imagine Jisung hyung in one of those Ajumma pants. That should keep it down.” Sungwoon says to Daniel, who has been pacing in front of the bathroom with a , well, _obvious_ , problem.

 

“Not gonna lie. That’s kind of hot.” Daniel laughs and Jisung kicks him on his way to the kitchen. “Leave me out of your wet fantasies, you deviants!”

 

“Who’s inside?” Sungwoon points to the bathroom. He was smart enough to not drink too much water last night so he doesn’t need to pee yet nor he needs to, you know, relieve other things because it’s a lucky kind of morning, but Daniel looks two inches away from dying.

 

“Jaehwan.” Daniel grimaces.

 

“Sucks to be you.” Sungwoon laughs, and lifts his arm to smell at his armpits. “I think I’m good to not shower this morning.”

 

“C’mhere.” Daniel mumbles and grabs Sungwoon by the shoulder to pull him in – his back to Daniel’s front – before sniffling down Sungwoon’ s neck like some kind of police search dog. “You smell fine.”

 

“Good dog,” Sungwoon reaches back his hand to pat at Daniel’s head and Daniel gives a mock growl before hugging Sungwoon tighter, almost lifting him off his feet.

 

“How do you not put on weight with the kind of shit you eat?” Daniel is saying, swaying Sungwoon from side to side, and not that Sungwoon doesn’t enjoy being a human ragdoll for Daniel to play with, but it is kind of uncomfortable with his ass right up against Daniel’s … very much awake friend _._

 

“Dude,” Sungwoon says, gripping at Daniel’s hands around his waist. “Maybe don’t go around back hugging people when you have your third leg up.”

 

Jinyoung snorts from where he is draping over the sofa in the living room. Daniel immediately lets go of Sungwoon.

 

“Shit, sorry.” Daniel’s face flushes red, and he lets go of Sungwoon immediately.

 

“Happens,” Sungwoon shrugs and pats at Daniel’s arm before turning and banging onto the bathroom door. “Kim Jaehwan, if you don’t come out in 2 minutes, I am letting Daniel piss on your guitar.”

 

“I am not your actual dog that needs to be potty trained.” Daniel murmurs. Jaehwan yells out a _fuck you_ , but he also comes out before the 2 minutes mark is up with some soap bubbles still clinging onto his wet hair.

 

Ha. That always works.

 

* * *

 

 

Sungwoon wonders if narcolepsy is infectious because these days, the only thing that is needed for any of them to fall asleep at the snap of a finger is a place for their head to lean against or their butt to sit on. Woojin even fell asleep one time during dinner, half bitten chicken wing still gripped tight in his fingers.

 

Waiting rooms become Sungwoon’s third favorite place to sleep – the first being his bed, and the second being their van. Most of the waiting rooms/make up rooms come with decent sofas, good enough for him to sneak a 20 minutes nap he needs to function for the next 20 hours. He needs to be careful with his make up though – so Sungwoon just sleeps like fucking Dracula, face up and firm. He would actually consider purchasing a 2 feet wide coffin to sleep in with his makeup if it comes in foldable option.

 

Said coffin would probably be the most useful for Daniel because he sleeps in the exact fashion the makeup stylists hate so much – hands rubbing at the perfectly made face and head burrowing into the sofa arm until the hair spray comes off and the carefully curled fringe flattens.

 

Like, right now. One of the head stylists is grabbing him by the collar to stop him from going over to the sofa where Sungwoon is sitting.

 

“Just 5 minutes,” Daniel is whining. “I’ll sleep sitting down so I don’t rub my face into anything.”

 

“That’s what you said the last time as well,” The stylist noona tsks. “I don’t have time to be redoing your hair, Daniel. We have 3 outfit changes to go through today.”

 

Daniel turns to her with his ultimate weapons – the puppy eyes. Sungwoon snorts quietly to himself. He has been on the receiving ends of those for a few times and trust him when he says this: they are lethal.

 

“Fine,” the stylist sighs. “Don’t touch your face.”

 

“Cross my heart!” Daniel says and whooshes his way right next to Sungwoon.

 

“Who’s doing the shoot?” Sungwoon asks as Daniel fishes for his neck pillow.

 

“Minhyun hyung and Jaehwan.”

 

“That’d take a good 20 minutes then .” Sungwoon says. Daniel shoots a finger gun at him and nods before fitting his pillow on his neck.

 

“C’mon,” Sungwoon shifts to the end of the sofa and pats at his thighs. “Sleep here. I’ll hold your hands so you don’t rub your face.”

 

Daniel grins at him and lies down head-first on Sungwoon’s lap. “I want noodles for lunch.” He says before hanging both of his hands onto Sungwoon’s.

 

“You are on a diet for the week,” Sungwoon reminds him and looks over sadly at the salad boxes manager hyung picked up earlier, but Daniel is already asleep. Sungwoon sighs and shifts his hand until it is comfortable enough to be holding both of Daniel’s hands before leaning his head over the back of the sofa. God, he is so sleepy.

 

He wakes up to a shriek from their stylist noona and a stamp of Daniel’s face printed in expensive makeup over the belly of his white shirt because Daniel had turned in his sleep and rubbed his face on Sungwoon’s stomach during the past ten minutes that both of them had nodded off.

 

Sungwoon ends up having to sit in his undershirt, next to Daniel who is getting a make up re-touch and an earful of scolding while a wardrobe assistant washes and dries Sungwoon’s shirt in record speed. That’s what he gets for trying to be a good hyung.

 

“Sorry,” Daniel turns and says with a grimace. Sungwoon just sighs. “Best nap I’ve gotten in a while though.”

 

The stylist noona tsks and aggressively sprays the setting spray over Daniel’s face.

 

Later when they are back in the van heading towards the practice room, Daniel comes to the very back row where Sungwoon is sitting and pokes at him until Sungwoon moves to the very leftmost seat.

 

“That wasn’t a permanent offer.” Sungwoon says as Daniel lies down across the back seats, head in Sungwoon’s lap.

 

“Too bad. It is now.” Daniel says and folds his arms.

 

“Your legs will get a cramp.” Sungwoon says, looking over at Daniel’s long legs awkwardly folded against the hand rest at other end of the long seat.

 

“Hmm,” Daniel just groans, already fallen asleep.

 

Like he said, narcolepsy.

 

* * *

  

“Is it gay if another guy jerks you off?”

 

Jisung chokes on his water. Sungwoon has a suspicion that Jihoon says that in the exact timing when Jisung lifts the water bottle to his mouth.

 

“What the fuck,” Daniel says, barely chewing the pieces of tofu he has stuffed into his mouth.

 

“Please don’t tell me it is Guanlin.” Jisung says after a couple of rough coughs. Sungwoon passes him the tissue box.

 

“Ew no, he’s like 12.” Jihoon wrinkles his nose and says like he is a whole 25 years old. “Plus, why would I do it with any of you guys?”

 

“What is wrong with us?” Daniel questions.

 

“Who is it then?” Jisung asks at the same time.

 

“You don’t know him,” Jihoon says, poking his chopsticks at the rice bowl in front of him.

 

“When did you even find the time?” Sungwoon asks, a little impressed. It is not like they have a ton of free times these days to be going around hooking up. It’d truly take a teenager to choose sex instead of sleep in their state.

 

“Last week Music Core.” Jihoon mumbles.

 

“Jesus,” Jisung groans, hands massaging the bridge of his nose. “Do I need to go through the list of Music Core attendees to check that there are actually minors there for you to be playing hooky with? At least tell me he is not too old.”

 

“I am 19!” Jihoon protests indignantly.

 

“Still a minor!” Jisung shoots back.

 

“You guys were careful, right?” Sungwoon asks.

 

“You mean … like condoms or …”

 

“I mean careful not getting caught!” Sungwoon almost yells. “I don’t need specifics.”

 

“Oh right.” Jihoon scratches at his head. “Yeah, yeah, of course. We were … discreet. Plus, it was just a quick … thing, you know.”

 

Daniel snorts and whispers. “Self-drag.” Jihoon throws the tissue box at him.

 

Jisung sighs and puts his chopsticks down. “Can we not talk about this WHILE WE ARE EATING?”

 

“I don’t want to bring it up in front of everyone.”

 

“Why would you want to bring it up in front of _anyone_?”

 

“It’s not like I have a lot of people to talk to about this kind of thing.” Jihoon mumbles.

 

That is kind of the saddest thing Sungwoon has ever heard from Jihoon.

 

“Plus, you three seem like you’d have the most experience.”

 

“In jerking off guys?” Jisung widens his eyes and asks in shock.

 

“In sex!” Jihoon shrieks. “You are the oldest and Daniel hyung is, well, Daniel.”

 

“Poor Sungwoon hyung though.” Daniel laughs and leans over to put his hands over Sungwoon’s ears teasingly. “Not in front of our baby hyung.”

 

Sungwoon slaps at his hands in annoyance.

 

“I thought Sungwoon hyung would be the most experienced actually.” Jihoon says, without a hint of mockery or mischievousness in his tone.

 

Jihoon has always been good at reading people.

 

“What’s your question?” Sungwoon sighs.

 

“I mean, I had sort of sex with a guy, not even sex, it is just, you know, mutual help. But I don’t think I am gay?”

 

“Then you probably are not.” Sungwoon shrugs. “Sometimes, you gotta make do. A hand is a hand. A mouth is a mouth.”

 

This time, it is Daniel who chokes on his food.

 

“Right?” Jihoon ignores Daniel who is getting his back thumped by Jisung, and says. “I mean, we also sort of kissed? But that was a heat of the moment thing!”

 

Sungwoon wonders if Jihoon is going to be one of those guys who went ‘no-homo bro’ when they literally just came inside of another dude although as far as Sungwoon is concerned, sexuality and sex are two different things. But he is not up for explaining birds and bees and Kinsey scale to Jihoon in the 45 minutes break they are getting for lunch before they had to resume filming.

 

“You are not gay if you don’t like guys. That’s the only requirement.” He settles on the simplest answer he can think of.

 

Jihoon stares at him in contemplation for a couple of seconds before nodding happily and resume eating. “Okay!”

 

“So this is what we are supposed to be doing too?” Jisung grunts, gesturing his arms wildly. “Sex education?”

 

“Might as well just make use of those bananas that manager hyung bought and no one is eating.” Sungwoon laughs.

 

“Ok, now, I sure am not eating any of those bananas. Thanks.” Jisung groans.

 

A knock comes on the closed door before their manager, Jung Woo, pulls it open. Well, at least, he wasn’t here a few minutes back.

 

“Break’s over, guys.” He says, poking his head in. “Jihoon, you are up first with Daehwi for the next shoot. Make it quick, yeah? Daehwi hasn’t eaten yet. Jisung and Sungwoon, you two are after them.”

 

“Oh, Jihoon is pretty _quick_. Don’t worry.” Daniel said with a wink, and Jihoon throws him a middle finger before following Jung Woo out of the room. Jisung follows shortly after, muttering about how he never wants to eat with Jihoon ever again.

 

Sungwoon finishes up his food quickly and stacks the empty plates Jihoon and Jisung left behind together with his own to put them back into the delivery container. Minhyun is probably coming in to eat next and whoever that are eating with him do not deserve to be hearing him bitch about how all of them are slobs.

 

“I’m gonna go first,” he says to Daniel, who is still picking at his rice.

 

Daniel nods before looking up at him. “Is he right? Jihoon? Do you think you are the most experienced?”

 

Sungwoon laughs unsurely. “Don’t I first need to know where the rest of you are at to answer that question?”

 

Daniel shrugs. “Is your experience with guys?”

 

Sungwoon does not know how to answer that question. He doesn’t think Daniel is a judgmental person but then again you can never trust anyone fully in this industry, so.

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sungwoon just chooses the safest route – the ambiguity and laughs it off before deciding to flee.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel says softly, and Sungwoon is not sure if it was meant for him to hear. “Yeah, I would.”

 

Sungwoon opens the door and walks out.

 

* * *

 

 

Sungwoon loves going abroad.

 

Not the airport rush or the long airplane rides or the sceneries that they barely get to enjoy.

 

There is only one reason he loves being abroad – hotel rooms and the attached bathrooms that comes with them. Usually, they split 4-4-3 for the members’ room assignment so it is at least 7 fewer people to share a bathroom with, and that is a bigger blessing than Sungwoon can count.

 

It is kind of surreally depressing if he thinks about it deeply. The other day, one of his cousins linked him an article stating how much they would be earning this year but Sungwoon kind of shrugged it off because he cannot comprehend when the amount of money is that large nor when he would not see it in its entirety in his bank account. His cousin was saying he must be happy making this much money, and Sungwoon is, but to be honest, he is happiest about being able to use the bathroom without someone banging on the door after ten minutes.

 

They are in Hong Kong – well, they were in a Hong Kong airport and were driven through streets in Hong Kong and now they are at a hotel in Hong Kong – with the way they are jumping countries to countries within the similar four metallic walls of planes and cars and hotels and venues, every country starts to feel the same after the first few.

 

But, anyway, they are in Hong Kong and they are drawing lots for room arrangements because they are shooting for their fan meeting documentary and while they usually just room with their dorm roommates, it is more fun for the camera to shake things up a little bit. Sungwoon is tired and wants nothing more than this to be over so he can catch a 30 minutes nap before they have to go for another shoot, but then he drew lot with Guanlin and Daniel for the smaller room, and his mood improves a little. One less person to share the bathroom with.

 

“Dibs on the single!” He calls once he opens the hotel room and sees a single bed and a queen bed.

 

“Dibs denied.” Daniel yells and catches Sungwoon by the nape of his neck before he can crash down onto the single bed.

 

“Ah why…” Sungwoon whines.

 

“We are a lot bigger than you in size so it only makes sense that one of us takes the single bed.” Daniel says, smirk full force and Sungwoon gives him the dirtiest glare he can conjure up.

 

“I can take the bed with Sungwoon hyung!” Guanlin says, giving Sungwoon a full gummy smile.

 

“No, you are the maknae. You take the single bed.” Daniel shakes his head and says.

 

“You are the one who is most likely to kick one of us off the bed while sleeping.” Sungwoon reminds Daniel. “You take it.”

 

“I am not that bad these days.” Daniel pouts before jumping onto Sungwoon from the back. “Plus, I want to sleep with you.”

 

Guanlin giggles and points at the camera mounted on the corner of the room. “They are gonna put some strange music like _Careless Whisper_ in the background of this scene.”

 

“I am surprised you actually know what _Careless Whisper_ is.” Sungwoon snorts. “Niel, get off me.”

 

“No.” Daniel snickers and falls backward until both of them drops onto the bigger bed. “It’s ok, Guanlin. You take the single bed.”

 

“Sure?” Guanlin asks, but Sungwoon can tell he wants to, so he just sighs and nods at their maknae.

 

“Go ahead kid.” Guanlin gives a big thumb up before emptying his backpack onto his now-claimed bed and going through them. “I can endure some suffering for two nights.”

 

Daniel snorts behind him, his arms still around Sungwoon. “I’ll let you know that at least 200 women would die to be in your position and sleep next to me.”

 

“Only 200?” Sungwoon laughs. “Selling yourself short now, Niel?”

 

“Don’t want you to be jealous too much.” Daniel whispers, probably so that the camera won’t catch them talking, and yeah, that could only be the reason why Daniel practically said those words into Sungwoon’s neck, lips brushing at Sungwoon’s skin.

 

“Get off,” Sungwoon wiggles a little within Daniel’s hold and says. “I want to take off my shoes.”

 

“Later,” Daniel says and yes, those are definitely Daniel’s lips moving across Sungwoon’s neck.

 

Sungwoon turns his head with a fair amount of struggle and looks at Daniel to see just what he is playing at, and Daniel just wordlessly stares back – the two of them almost nose to nose, and Daniel’s fingers pull a little at the front of Sungwoon’s shirt – not quite touching skin to skin but hovering just enough to be aware, and Sungwoon almost empties his brain thinking of _what_ to say – how to ask what Daniel thinks he is doing.

 

“Sungwoon hyung, can I use your toner? I forgot mine.” Guanlin asks, oblivious voice penetrating the weird atmosphere Sungwoon found himself in.

 

“Yeah,” Sungwoon shakes himself and gets up. Daniel easily lets him go this time. “Yeah, of course. Which one do you want? I brought four bottles.”

 

Guanlin blinks dumbly at him.

 

* * *

  

It is raining. Not even raining. It is the angry unrelenting kind of downpour where all you can see is the two feet in front of you through a watery curtain and all you can hear is the force of the wind knocking against the world. Sungwoon opened the hotel windows earlier to see how bad it is and almost got blown over by the strength of the wind.

 

So, this is what a Hong Kong typhoon is like, huh? And this is not even one of the strong ones apparently.

 

Good news is their flight got delayed because of this insistent rain, meaning they have a full eight hours to rest instead of the scheduled three. Sure, they are going to be rushing once they land back in Seoul, but nothing can be done here right now because even company executives are powerless against Mother Nature, and all they can do is sigh over the phone and tell the managers to ‘ _wait it out but get back with the first plane possible’_.

 

“Yo!” Seongwoo pokes his head into their hotel room and Sungwoon is the only one who cares enough to grant him an acknowledgement. Guanlin is taking a shower and Daniel has been stuck to his iPad for the past 30 minutes, barely moving even when Sungwoon slid under the duvet next to him earlier to unsuccessfully try to get some sleep. The clock is ticking 20 minutes past midnight, which, by their standard, is way too early to even be thinking about going to bed.

 

“What’s up?” Sungwoon crawls to the end of the bed and says, head dangling off the edge.

 

“Wanna go for a supper run?” Seongwoo asks. “Didn’t one of the hotel staffs say there’s a 24-hour mini mart in the basement? We can get some ramen and beer.”

 

That gets attention from Daniel, who rolls over Sungwoon and gets up.

 

“Where’s Jung Woo hyung?” Sungwoon asks because someone has to think with their brain and not their stomach here. “What if we run into someone?”

 

“He went to bed.” Seongwoo shrugs. “It’ll just be a quick run.”

 

“C’mon. I’m starving.” Daniel pokes at Sungwoon in the head.

 

“Yeah, must be all the energy you spent scrolling through your instagram feed.” Sungwoon snorts but gets up nonetheless, stretching his limbs and yelling towards the bathroom. “Guanlin, we are gonna go buy some snacks. You wanna come along?”

 

“No, go ahead, hyung.” Guanlin yells back. “Can you get me ice cream?”

 

“It’s fucking 18’C.” Sungwoon mutters but makes a mental note of it anyway.

 

Seongwoo and Daniel are checking how much cash they have between them while Sungwoon looks around for something decent to wear over his pajama shirt and shorts. He had already packed all his stuff so he is just in the bathrobe provided by the hotel – it is warm enough for him to last the night.

 

“Niel, lend me your hoodie.” He calls to Daniel, hands already reaching for Daniel’s abandoned grey hoodie sprawled over the back of a chair. Daniel hasn’t packed yet, of course. He’ll throw everything into his suitcase half an hour before they have to leave tomorrow and then go around begging other people to lend him some storage space when his suitcase fails to close with all his unfolded clothes and jumbled shit. Sungwoon already has a quarter of his suitcase left empty for Daniel to shove his toiletry bag in later.

 

Daniel mumbles a _yes_ back, focused on counting the unfamiliar notes and coins and arguing with Seongwoo if they should go and check if Jisung has any more cash.

 

“I have enough cash. C’mon.” Sungwoon says to both of them, shoving his wallet into the pocket of the hoodie. He meant to buy some souvenirs for people back home but their night shopping/filming trip was cancelled because of the typhoon so he might as well shell out some money on cheap instant food.

 

The over-sized hoodie is well-worn and soft, hugging Sungwoon snuggly and smelling like Daniel’s favorite cologne. Sungwoon pulls up the hood onto his head and shoves both of his hands into the front pocket, letting the warm fabric encompasses him all over.

 

“Dude, you look like you are wearing one of those hoodie dresses girls wear.” Seongwoo snickers and Sungwoon kicks him in the shin.

 

“One day, I am going to stab all of you lanky motherfuckers in the kneecaps and not feel a single ounce of remorse.” He grits his teeth, and waits for Daniel to lock up their hotel room.

 

“You look like one of my ex-girlfriends.” Daniel laughs and throws an arm around Sungwoon’ shoulders. “I used to date this chick back in college and when she, you know, sleep over, she’d wear my clothes in the morning and it kind of looks like you right now.”

 

“You can be the target for my kneecaps slashing practices.” Sungwoon mumbles.

 

“It’s a compliment.” Daniel giggles.

 

“Yes, because all I want in a compliment is to be compared to your hook ups.” Sungwoon rolls his eyes.

 

“Hey, we were dating, not just hooking up.” Daniel says, reaching forward to press the ‘down’ button of the elevator. “And if it is any consolation, you are much prettier, darling.”

 

Seongwoo yelps when Sungwoon shoves Daniel right into him, both of them almost tumbling into the opening elevator door.

 

Serves them both right.

 

* * *

 

“Hello everyone,” Woojin bows at the camera solemnly. “I am turning the camera off as we’ll be having an orgy.”

 

Jisung lifts his head and tsks all the way from the kitchenette area with equal part panic and equal part disappointment.

 

“I hope they don’t edit it out and orgy becomes the first related search word next to your name.” Daehwi says breezily, hanging upside down from the sofa and munching on a beef jerky strip.

 

“Is it off?” Jihoon asks and barely waits for a confirmation nod from Woojin before diving in for a beer.

 

“Minors drinking and making lewd jokes. What a team.” Jisung grumbles and puts down the ramen cups on the coffee table in front of them nosily.

 

“At least we don’t drink back in Korea.” Jihoon says, smacking his lips after a couple of sips at the beer.

 

“I’m dying for any non-Hite beer.” Daniel says, swiping the Heineken can from Jihoon and taking a big sip. “They even sent beer boxes for product placement to my filming sites, seriously.”

 

“It’s called capitalism, my dude.” Sungwoon says and thrashes around their grocery bag for more snacks. They practically emptied out the mini mart but apparently, there is a typhoon in this room as strong as the one outside because all that is left are a couple of mixed nuts packages and a small chips bag.

 

“Who took my sour candies?” Sungwoon narrows his eyes and looks around the room for culprit.

 

“I gave it to Jinyoung hyung.” Daehwi answers without even glancing over at him. “To match his sour face.”

 

“Where is Jinyoung?” Sungwoon asks, looking around and realizing that they are missing one head count.

 

“Sulking.” Woojin answers. Right, they are the roommates this time. “The good old teenage heartbreak.”

 

“Huh?” Jisung asks and kicks Sungwoon in the side so that he can make his way with the big ass water kettle to make ramen. “What heartbreak?”

 

“He saw a girl during fan hi-touch, who, he said and I quote, is the most beautiful being he has ever seen and 100% his type.” Daehwi sings.

 

“He changes his type like twice a day depending on who he is crushing.” Seongwoo snorts.

 

“At least, this time,” Jaehwan sighs, taking over the kettle from Jisung and pouring out boiling water into his chosen ramen cup. “It is not a middle-aged married variety show writer.”

 

Jihoon gives a mock shiver. “God, that was the worst one yet. She wasn’t even that pretty.”

 

“ _But her eyes shine so bright when she speaks.”_ Woojin extends his arms and says in his best Jinyoung imitation. “Thank god he got over that one quick.”

 

Sungwoon kind of feels bad that they are making fun on Jinyoung behind his back but honestly, it is difficult not to when Jinyoung provides them with this much material. Hopefully, he grows out of this habit of falling in love at first sight soon because he is in the wrong line of career for that kind of heart.

 

“At least, this one looked closer to our age than our moms’.” Daehwi shrugs and dangles a strip of beef jerky over Guanlin’s mouth like he is feeding a hippopotamus at the zoo.

 

“Fans are like a can of worms you shouldn’t even think about opening.” Minhyun says and Seongwoo raises an eyebrow.

 

“I am gonna post this quote anonymously on Pann so I can steal all your fans.”

 

“I mean dating a fan.” Minhyun bats an annoyed hand. “You know what I mean.”

 

“She’s not a fan if that makes it any better.” Woojin shrugs. “She works there, I think. At the venue.”

 

“How does he get into these tragic love stories every time?” Minhyun shakes his head and says.

 

“It’d be nice to date an outsider though, no?” Jaehwan says, blowing at his ramen. “Someone not connected to all this.”

 

“Isn’t it better to date someone in the industry though?” Seongwoo replies. “I mean, they would understand you more or get not as jealous or angry when you can’t find time.”

 

“I would get jealous though.” Guanlin pipes in. “If my girlfriend is an idol and has so many dudes into her.”

 

“You are 15. What do you know about dating?” Jihoon snorts.

 

“I am 16 and a man!” Guanlin splutters. “I am already taller than all of you.”

 

“I bet all your growth hormones went into your height and none into your … essential areas.” Woojin wriggles his eyebrows with a snicker and high fives a gleeful Jihoon. Sungwoon catches Guanlin by the elbow before he punches the two smug asses in the face, or worse, trying to prove his growth hormones went into the right area when everyone is just trying to eat.

 

“You two shut up and drink your illegal beer.” Sungwoon points his chopsticks at them and glares.

 

“What do you think Sungwoon hyung?” Daniel asks, chin in his hand. He has been quiet for a while, obvious as to why by the three empty beer cans next to him. “Dating someone in the same line of work or someone outside?”

 

“Why are you asking me that?”

 

“Aren’t you the most experienced in this area?” Daniel gives a tipsy smirk and Sungwoon doesn’t have time to wonder what he actually means before Seongwoo and Jaehwan broke out into fake-impressed _oohs._

 

“Yeah, what do you think, hyung?” Guanlin turns and asks him earnestly.

 

Sungwoon sighs.

 

“Someone not in the industry.” He answers, and maybe he is imagining it or over-thinking it but he could have sworn he saw Daniel frown. “If you are dating.”

 

“And if you are not dating?” Daniel asks.

 

“It is easier to be with someone who has as much to lose as you if you are not serious about a relationship, I guess.” Sungwoon shrugs. “Kind of a mutual understanding of expectations.”

 

“Oh my god, how many idols have you hooked up with?” Daehwi blurts out and Minhyun reaches over to slap him on the head.

 

“Why? I’m just asking.” Daehwi pouts. “Actually, you too, Minhyun hyung. Since you two have way more idol experience than us.”

 

Minhyun splutters. "I am not a heathen!”

 

“Ya!” Sungwoon protests while Jaehwan snickers. “That, I can guarantee. Even Minhyun hyung’s porn is like soft core artsy shit.”

 

“Jaehwan, what the fuck!” About three people say in unison.

 

“Why are you looking at my porn?!” Minhyun shrieks.

 

“Why do you not have passcode on your iPad or clean your browser history?” Jaehwan retorts back.

 

“Oh my god, this keeps getting worse and worse.” Jisung holds his head in his hands and says. “All of you go back to your rooms. Woojin, there’s a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in the fridge. Bring it for Jinyoung and we are never going to bring up porn or hooking up with idols ever again."

 

“You are not the actual mother of us.” Seongwoo snorts before turning to Sungwoon. “Sungwoon hyung, tell me more about all your sensual encounters and erotic experie-” Sungwoon kicks him off the sofa before he can finish that sentence.

 

They actually didn’t leave until it is 4 in the morning and Jung Woo hyung woke up to yell at them for still staying up when their flight is in five hours. Half of them had already nodded off ever since the second round of poker and Sungwoon barely gets Guanlin to walk back on his own to their room where they can hopefully catch a three whole hour of sleep.

 

“I got ramen stain on your hoodie,” Sungwoon whispers once he comes out of the washroom after washing up and comes face to face with a half naked Daniel. “I’ll wash it and give it back to you later.”

 

“It’s ok. It’s an old one anyway,” Daniel smiles at him, beer and cologne smell strong and distinct. “I like it better on you too.” Daniel adds in, bending over and resting both of his arms over Sungwoon’s shoulders so that they are almost nose to nose and Sungwoon just half-pats, half-guides Daniel by his bare arms into the bathroom.

 

“Don’t drown in there.”

 

“Yes, sir.” Daniel gives him a lopsided smile and shuts the bathroom door.

 

Sungwoon sighs at the now closed door and crawls into the bed, eyes getting heavier by the second. He is barely even aware when Daniel slips in next to him, smelling fresh like the standard hotel soap and shampoo.

 

“Are you asleep?” Daniel whispers and Sungwoon thinks that is one of Daniel’s hands playing with the hair on the side of Sungwoon’s head but he is not too sure.

 

“Hmm,” he just mumbles back and lets go of the blanket a little so Daniel can pull some of it over to his side. Daniel lets out a contented sigh and throws his arm over Sungwoon’s body, shoving his hand into the pocket of the hoodie Sungwoon is wearing, his ice-cold hand encompassing Sungwoon’s. Sungwoon shivers a bit and complains. “It’s cold.”

 

“It’ll warm up in a while.” Daniel murmurs back and runs his fingers over Sungwoon’s knuckles and Sungwoon has been slipping in and out of consciousness for a while now so he just lets himself enjoys it, Daniel’s hand and Daniel’s body pressed against his and Daniel’s breath tickling past his neck, and just sleeps.

 

* * *

 

Daniel has been, for the lack of a better word, intense lately, when it comes to Sungwoon. Not in a bad tension way. Well, there is tension, but a different kind of tension, the kind where stares go on a little too long and touches get a little too intimate.

 

Sungwoon likes skinship. He is a touchy person, has always been. It is one of his better qualities, according to some of his friends. Make him feel approachable or whatever. He doesn’t really think twice before putting his hands on someone’s thigh or laying his head down on someone’s shoulder, and it gets even worse when it is reciprocated. Like, he doesn’t cling onto Woojin the way he does to Daehwi because Woojin minds more about his personal space than Daehwi or Sungwoon does.

 

And Daniel always, always, reciprocates. In a different way. Daehwi could literally be glued to Sungwoon’s side and he won’t feel the same rush of electricity like he does when Daniel casually grips a hand around the back of his neck tight, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to send Sungwoon’s heart racing. It is different because Daniel touches him differently – like he is being downright possessive instead of just being clingy, and looks at him differently. Sometimes, like he is seeing Sungwoon for the first time, and sometimes like he wants to rip Sungwoon’s clothes off right there and then.

 

Hence, _intense_.

 

Sungwoon likes to think he is a fairly practical person. Just because he gets lucky enough to propel into decent fame doesn’t mean that he thinks he is the hot shit and everyone is just enamored with him. But then again, he is not daft enough to not see when someone does show interest in him. He has been with more than a fair share of people. He can see the signs.

 

He doesn’t talk about it. Not to Moonkyu, who usually is his confidante in this kind of thing. Not to his friends outside of the industry. And definitely not to Daniel.

 

Because this is a new ground even for Sungwoon. Sure he has fucked around with people in the industry from idols to hair make up staff, friends to strangers, but flirting with a member of his own group is not something he is fluent in.

 

But that doesn’t mean that his body follows the same line of restraints. Daniel is his type to a T. Sungwoon is not ashamed to admit that, he has been since day 1 when Sungwoon walked into that Produce audition stage. (Ok, Daniel was _one of the guys_ he was attracted to back in Produce but it was something that he didn’t think about too much because he was there with his life on the line, not his dick). And every time Daniel wraps his arms around him or lays his hand on Sungwoon’s thigh, fingers spread apart and thumb rubbing at Sungwoon’s inner thigh, Sungwoon melts into the touch, barely resisting himself from climbing into Daniel’s lap and just asks him to finish what he started, or just … start.

 

And the worst part of it is Daniel seems like he is aware of it too.

 

But he never actually starts.

 

* * *

 

 

Kihyun finds him in the Inkigayo waiting room on their second week of promotion. It is kind of weird seeing him here when they used to share a waiting room, all of Hotshot and Monsta X squashed into one tiny room with three or four staff, but now, Kihyun is here, in Wanna One's private waiting room, Monsta X’s new autographed albums in his hands and a big smile on his face.

 

“Sorry the rest can’t come. They are still in make up.” He is saying, handing a few albums over to Jisung.

 

“No, we should have come instead to greet you. Our bad. We got here really late.” Jisung replies and goes off to search for the signed copies of Wanna One’s albums.

 

“That’s alright.” Kihyun says after him. “You guys must have been real busy.”

 

“Why are you speaking so formally?” Sungwoon shoulder checks him and asks, a little giddy to have Kihyun here. Sungwoon does try his best to keep up with his friends but it only happens when he has enough time to log into his kakao. When he does get a rare free day off, it is difficult enough to choose between visiting his grandparents and just sleeping in for 12 hours straight, so social visits really aren’t in his top priority list. Turns out, it is a lot more challenging to hang out with your friends when unlike previously, you are no longer available to work around your much busier friends’ schedules. It kind of makes him feel like an asshole but Sungwoon is glad to no longer be that kid just going around and hanging whenever his friends are free.

 

“Not to you, shit head. And watch who you are talking to. I am your sunbae.” Kihyun grins, pulling him into a hug. Sungwoon barely has enough time to stop before his made-up face smacked into Kihyun’s chest. “God, I miss your ugly mug.”

 

Sungwoon squishes his face and looks up at Kihyun. “You do know how to flatter a guy.”

 

Kihyun just laughs and cups Sungwoon’s face in both his hands before leaning in. “You know that I can flatter a guy very well.”

 

Sungwoon panics a little and backs his face so that they are not close enough to see each other’s pores. Maybe Kihyun is just used to how it was before when no one in particular paid any attention to them in the shabby waiting rooms because more or less everyone in their respective team was aware of the things between Sungwoon and Kihyun and didn’t really give a shit, so they can just be a little ballsy in flirting. But that was then, and this was now. Sungwoon can almost feel the curious gazes on his back from his new members.

 

Kihyun must have seen the look on Sungwoon’s face because he drops his hand and shrugs. “You do look a lot better when you don’t have that mint green toothpaste mess on your head though.”

 

“Fuck off.” Sungwoon rolls his eyes. “How long are you promoting? We’ll be done in about two weeks and we might have some break time before the award season so maybe I can come and hang out.”

 

“We are going to Japan straight after this.” Kihyun replies and Sungwoon lets out a disappointed sigh.

 

“I am glad though.” Kihyun smiles. “I like seeing you busy.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, me too.” Sungwoon smiles back genuinely. “I really do miss you though.”

 

“Of course, you do.” Kihyun smirks. “I’m the only one who can stand your shit.”

 

Sungwoon snorts.

 

“Wanna One rehearsal in five.” One of the set assistants pokes his head into the waiting room and shouts mechanically. Woojin stirs from where he is dozing off on the couch and the head stylist yells at Jihoon to take out the hairpins on his head.

 

“I better roll then.” Kihyun says, taking the signed albums Jisung found from god-knows-where with a polite thank-you and patting Sungwoon on the arm. “Catch you later.”

 

“Yeah, later.” Sungwoon smiles and sends him off before getting caught by a make up noona who forces another layer of hair spray on his hair.

 

* * *

 

They win #1, and Sungwoon knows that he will probably regret it down the line in future when he looks back and realizes that he never truly appreciates these moments and the feeling of being on top, but the routine of winning on music shows is a lot more hectic yet mundane than he expected. Giving speeches that most of them had memorized by now, and making sure to bow to all the present senior and junior artists alike and listening to the instrumental to give a somewhat decent encore stage amidst the chaos while thanking the audience simultaneously – there is not much time to actually soak in the win and enjoy it.

 

Inkigayo does not have long speech time allotment or encore so it is a little easier – only Jisung and Daniel speak this time while Sungwoon just stands and claps and waves next to them.

 

Someone engulfs him from behind and Sungwoon turns his neck to see Kihyun on his back and Ho Seok grinning and waving at him.

 

“Congrats dude,” Kihyun says and Sungwoon is about to reply a thanks but he gets pulled over by Daniel for a group bow to the audience, so he just turns around and mouths ‘thanks’ to the both of them.

 

When they get off the stage though, Kihyun is standing next to the main stage by himself, hands in his pocket, looking every bit of the heart breaker that he is. Sungwoon detours a little from where the cameras are waiting for them. The 10 of them can handle giving some behind the scene footages when Sungwoon steals about 2 minutes to talk to Kihyun.

 

“Hey,” he says to Kihyun. “You guys leaving?”

 

“Yeah, in a couple of minutes, I think.” Kihyun grins. “Congrats, again.”

 

“Thank you.” Sungwoon says it properly this time and shakes the hand that Kihyun is sticking out. Kihyun holds onto him and stares at him for a couple of beats before leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

 

“Dude!” Sungwoon says, rubbing at the spot where Kihyun’s lips landed and coming back sticky from the all the foundation on it. It feels like it has been ages since he had this kind of skinship from Kihyun. “What would your girlfriend think?” He leans in and jokes, making sure to whisper low enough for just the two of them to hear.

 

Kihyun smiles down at his shoes. “We broke up a couple of weeks back.”

 

“Oh my god,” Sungwoon murmurs. “I am so sorry. Didn’t you guys start seeing each other what? Four months back?”

 

“Six.” Kihyun shrugs.

 

“Right.” Sungwoon nods. He feels like six months isn’t that much of a long time but then his whole life gets upside down in a little over four months so who is he to say anything? “Are you … alright?”

 

“Yeah, I’m good. It was expected anyway.” Kihyun nods before smirking. “Kind of wish I didn’t get into it in the first place though. I wouldn’t have broken off with you then.”

 

“I…”

 

“Don’t worry,” Kihyun laughs, probably seeing the terrified look on Sungwoon’s face. “I am not hitting on you. I meant it when I said a clean break.”

 

Sungwoon smiles. Yes, that’s what Kihyun said. _A clean break_. Because he found someone he considers to like seriously enough to get into a relationship with, and he and Sungwoon were just a convenient arrangement anyway. Kihyun probably didn’t know but Sungwoon was relieved back then because he and Taehyun were already planning to audition for Produce at that point of time and he was planning on breaking things off with Kihyun. But Kihyun did it for him instead, so Sungwoon just smiled and agreed, and showed him some good and private dating spots and that was the end – left with zero mess and a good friend.

 

“I do miss the sex sometimes though.” Kihyun leers ridiculously and Sungwoon hits him in the arm.

 

“Stop saying that kind of shit in public, God.”

 

“Alright, Mr. Superstar.” Kihyun just laughs. “Anyway, I think you should go back. I don’t think it is a very good idea for me to get punched in the face by the nation’s pick.”

 

Sungwoon turns his neck to see Daniel looking over at them with a stormy look on his face.

 

“He’s harmless, really.” Sungwoon just shrugs it off. “You are going to next week’s music shows as well, right?”

 

“Yeah, plenty of chances for me to embarrass you, don’t worry.” Kihyun pats him on the head. Sungwoon rolls his eyes but doesn’t resist hugging Kihyun for the last time before running over to where the rest of the kids are. The cameras have already been turned off and manager hyung is telling them to have dinner at the recording studio later. Great. Kihyun owes him big time because he is obviously going to get zero airtime for whatever thing they were filming for.

 

“Shouldn’t you be more careful?”

 

Sungwoon doesn’t even notice that Daniel has crept in behind him.

 

“Jesus, make some noise.” He mumbles. “Careful about what?”

 

“You two seemed pretty chummy.” Daniel whispers. “People might get wrong idea.”

 

Sungwoon snaps his neck to face Daniel. “What wrong idea?”

 

“You know,” Daniel shrugs. “Maybe don’t make it too obvious that you two are fucking around.”

 

“We are friends,” Sungwoon grits out. “And when do you think I’d have the time to be fucking with someone I haven’t even seen in six months?”

 

“Yo, Daniel and Sungwoon. Coming?” Jung Woo , the manager, calls at them and Sungwoon looks over to see the rest of them already being herded out of the door.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel calls back and leaves, but Sungwoon grabs him by the wrist. He really has enough of Daniel’s passive aggressive attempts. Sungwoon very highly doubts that Daniel is oblivious to what he is doing because it feels like Daniel means every word and touch, but Daniel’s words and touches end up at just that – words and touches, and now, he wants to what? Play the possessive boyfriend? Sungwoon does not have the resistance or patience against this.

 

“I am not fucking around with anyone,” Sungwoon says while Daniel looks down curiously at Sungwoon’s hand on his wrist. “And you know what? It might be a lot easier for the both of us if you just ask me to fuck you.”

 

Daniel’s mouth drops and Sungwoon lets go of him in surprising satisfaction. “All you gotta do is ask, Niel.”

 

Daniel does not reply so Sungwoon just leaves him there and catches up to manager hyung.

 

* * *

 

“Are you and Daniel fighting?”

 

Jung Woo catches him when Sungwoon is getting some water from the cooler.

 

It has been about 30 minutes since Sungwoon burst out at Daniel. They left for the recording studio straight after to record a CF song after dinner, and Sungwoon hasn’t talked to Daniel since. He just got onto the van and sat next to Jisung, pulling his eye mask down on his face and trying to sleep on the way here.

 

He has said his piece. It is up to Daniel now to decide what he does with it.

 

“Earlier,” Jung Woo adds in. “You two looks like you were arguing.”

 

“We are not.” Sungwoon shrugs. “Just some things to be sorted out.”

 

Jung Woo gives him an unimpressed look. “Listen, I get that with 11 dudes pressed together like you are, there is gotta be some clashes and conflicts, but we can’t afford any obvious rift in the team, at least, not to the public. You got that, right?”

 

“Of course I do.” Sungwoon mumbles. That is the same lecture they got the first day after the rankings were announced. Basically, if you hate any of your member, don’t let it be shown. Sungwoon doubts any of them are that dumb anyway.

 

“Good because I feel like you two have been kind of intense for a couple of weeks now, for whatever reason.”

 

Sungwoon kind of wants to laugh in his face.

 

“You know Jihoon and Jaehwan got called up because they were fighting the other week, right?”

 

“It wasn’t a fight.” Sungwoon repeats what both Jihoon and Jaehwan were saying to their managers the previous week. It was stupid anyway – just an accumulation of small clashes that happen when you are roommates and Jihoon blew up at Jaehwan one night when Jaehwan used Jihoon’s cologne and didn’t put it back. Both of them were tired and words were exchanged, with a couple of shoves involved, and then they both got their asses whipped the next day when the managers caught a whiff of it. “They are good with each other now anyway.”

 

“Yeah, well, it might be better for you all if you and Daniel don’t get called up like that. And you are one of the oldest, talk it out with him.”

 

Sungwoon sighs. “Fine. But, like I said, we weren’t arguing or anything.”

 

“Good,” Jung Woo nods. “We are clear then.”

 

“Crystal clear.” Sungwoon gives a salute.

 

* * *

 

“Can we talk?” Sungwoon opens the door to the small meeting room where Jung Woo has dragged Daniel to after Daniel’s recording session so that they can discuss Daniel’s individual schedule for the upcoming week. “Daniel, I mean.”

 

There are about three people left to record after Sungwoon so that gives them a solid 30 minutes or more.

 

“Sure,” Jung Woo nods, giving Sungwoon a knowing look. “We are about done here and I need to go eat anyway.”

 

“Enjoy your meal, hyung.” Sungwoon calls out after him before locking the door and turning around to face Daniel. “What’s up?”

 

“What do you want to talk about?” Daniel says, stone-faced.

 

“You know what I want to talk about.” Sungwoon replies and crosses the room to sit down on the chair next to him. “Are you gonna stop sulking anytime soon?”

 

“I am not sulking.” Daniel sulks.

 

“Yes, because this is the usual sunny Danny look.” Sungwoon gestures his hand around Daniel’s face. “Stop being a jealous little shit and ask me what you want to ask.”

 

Daniel stares at him for a while before finally speaking out. “Why is this so … easy for you?”

 

“What is?” Sungwoon asks. “Sex?”

 

“I guess?” Daniel shrugs. “You asked me to fuck you in the middle of Inkigayo.”

 

“Erm. One, I didn’t ask you to fuck me. I asked you to ask me to fuck you and two, Inkigayo was over and we were backstage.”

 

“Semantics,” Daniel mutters.

 

“And three, we both know that’s what you want. I mean, you can deny and we can just take it as me being narcissistic or whatever, but that’d be pointless, don’t you think? My neck probably still smells like your cologne because you rubbed it into my neck this afternoon and told me you wanted me to smell like you.”

 

Daniel flushes a little.

 

“A lot of things in my life are … difficult for me, Niel.” Sungwoon adds in. “But sex isn’t. It doesn’t have to be.”

 

Daniel just looks at him for a while, wordless, and then leans over the armrest of his chair to peck Sungwoon on the lips. “That’s my question.”

 

Sungwoon stares at Daniel in the eyes, close enough that he can see the small brownish speckles in Daniel’s irises, and counts backwards from ten, a trick his grandma taught him to do when he is too much in his head and feelings might outweigh logic.

 

He made it to five before he puts his hand around Daniel’s face to pull in him for a proper kiss.

 

Daniel kisses like he does everything else – with too much enthusiasm and excitement. He almost picks up Sungwoon out of his chair because apparently, meeting chairs with rolling wheels are not suitable for making out, and traps him standing against the edge of the table. Sungwoon moans into the kiss, appreciating Daniel’s large hands under his sweatshirt making their ways up his back and blindly climbs onto the table, and pulls Daniel in until he is close enough for Sungwoon to wrap his legs around Daniel’s waist.

 

“Take off your pants,” Sungwoon gasps in between kisses. He would do it himself but his hands are too busy gripping onto Daniel’s shoulders under his shirt and he has been fantasizing about them so long to just let them go now, even for a greater purpose.

 

“You want to fuck me now?” Daniel says. He looks almost … scared.

 

“No, dude.”

 

“Oh.” Daniel looks even more scared now. “You want me to fuck you?”

 

Sungwoon sighs, taking his lips off of Daniel’s jawline. “If you think I am gonna let you anywhere near my ass without lube and condom, you need to think again.”

 

“Oh.” Daniel repeats.

 

Sungwoon sighs and pushes him off, regrettably, right into the recently vacated chair. “You talk too much,” he mumbles and pulls Daniel’s sweatpants down himself. Daniel is not rock hard, but he gets there once Sungwoon swallows him halfway through, quickly filling up Sungwoon’s mouth. Daniel is moaning something incoherent up there but Sungwoon is focused on not gagging at this point – he hasn’t given a blow job in, what, seven? Eight? Months, and he is a little out of practice.

 

But Daniel does not seem to mind with the way he starts to grab on Sungwoon’s hair and tugs at it every time Sungwoon bobs his head down, and thrusts into his mouth with little grunts. Sungwoon fumbles for his own jeans, shoving a hand down his underwear to grab at his own hard on and jerking at it carelessly. He would like nothing more than this to last long but they are on borrowed time here and even in his fucked-out daze, Sungwoon is aware of the distant noises from the recording room down the corridor, making him conscious of what and where they are doing.

 

“Tissue box,” Sungwoon pants once he lets Daniel falls out of his mouth because he cheeks are starting to hurt a little.

 

“What?” Daniel opens his eyes half way through and asks. His lips are red like he has been biting them down and he bites them down again when Sungwoon leans down to lick his way up Daniel’s dick.

 

“Tissue box. On the table. Can you reach it?” Sungwoon asks again, and Daniel stills for a little while before his brain kicks in and leans forward a little to get it.

 

“Thanks,” Sungwoon mumbles before he grabs and shoves a couple of tissue sheets down his pants. He might have to come in his pants but he is not gonna spoil them and walk out of here with a cum stain on his ass.

 

“Are you…” Daniel asks. “Do you want me to …”

 

“I am good,” Sungwoon smiles up at him before taking him in his mouth again and Daniel shuts up.

 

Daniel is quiet when he comes, which is something Sungwoon doesn’t expect because he is loud at everything else. Sungwoon himself is loud when it comes to sex but it is not like he can make a lot of noise right now when there is a leaking dick in his mouth. He works his hand a little rougher and starts to reach climax halfway through Daniel’s, Daniel’s little gasps and thrusts edging him on.

 

He lets Daniel’s softened cock slips out of his mouth afterwards and lays his head down on Daniel’s thigh, jaw a little sore and breath a little too out to be doing anything else.

 

“Did you …” Daniel pants. “…swallow?”

 

“Where am I gonna spit out in this room, Daniel?” Sungwoon asks, lifting his head with great resistance and puts a small kiss onto Daniel’s thigh before straightening his back and trying to see how much damage he has done to his underwear. Luckily, he didn’t underestimate the amount of tissues needed so apart from some small spillage here and there, he is good.

 

“Sorry,” Daniel says when Sungwoon balls up the wasted tissue with more tissues so he can dispose them into the waste basket without giving some poor cleaning lady a heart attack tomorrow morning when she cleans out the trash.

 

“About what?”

 

“I didn’t get to, you know,” Daniel gestures around Sungwoon’s open jeans.

 

“It’s alright,” Sungwoon smiles and zips his jeans. “Doesn’t always have to be quid pro quo.”

 

“Next time?” Daniel asks, standing up from where he is sitting and wrapping his arms around Sungwoon, chest to chest.

 

“If you insist.” Sungwoon smirks and tiptoes a bit to give him a kiss but Daniel ducks out of the way.

 

“Dude, you just had my cum in your mouth!”

 

“Erm, yeah?” Sungwoon raises an eyebrow. “Emphasis on _your cum._ Are you one of those annoying dudes that think cum is gross but always want to come inside someone else?”

 

Daniel winces. “No?” He says guiltily before leaning down to kiss Sungwoon, with tongue, so Sungwoon lets him go this time for being a potential fuckboy.

 

He stops Daniel before he makes Sungwoon’s lip flushed more than what is acceptable, and leads him out of the room, his jaw still a little sore and his knees a little bruised, but his body lighter than he has ever felt in weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

Daniel is good at a lot of things, but subtlety is not one of them.

 

Sungwoon feels like he should have realized this sooner because Daniel is one of the easiest people around to read, his face always open to whatever he is feeling and thinking. However, Sungwoon didn’t think he’d be obvious enough to be fucking groping Sungwoon in the middle of the kitchen.

 

“Dude, get your hands off of my ass.” Sungwoon hisses, twisting his body away from Daniel with great difficulty since his hands are busy pouring out the seasoning into the ramen pot.

 

“It’s a good ass.” Daniel winks ridiculously, but thankfully takes his hands off. “Plus, why are you acting so jumpy? It’s not like I don’t get my ass smacked daily by half of the people in this dorm.”

 

“You really want me to outline the difference between smacking an ass and _caressing_ one?” Sungwoon snorts.

 

“Maybe later.” Daniel grins and throws the two ramen packets in his hands at Sungwoon. “Here, make me some too.”

 

“Make your own.” Sungwoon rolls his eyes. “My pot is not big enough.”

 

“I feel like there’s a sexual innuendo hidden in that sentence somewhere.” Daniel laughs, but opens the overhead cabinet to take out a new ramen pot.

 

“You think me breathing has sexual innuendos hidden.” Sungwoon rolls his eyes. “Seriously, dude, cool down a little. Also, stop clinging to me too much in public.”

 

“You are the one to talk.” Daniel grunts and points at the sesame oil bottle next to Sungwoon. “You are literally like a koala with separation anxiety when it comes to other members. Why I am any different?”

 

“Because,” Sungwoon sighs, handing Daniel the bottle. “I don’t want to fuck them.”

 

Daniel slips his hand and pours a good amount of sesame oil into his soup.

 

Sungwoon tsks, hip-checking Daniel out of the way and tries to scoop out as much oil as he can to salvage Daniel’s ramen.

 

“So, erm,” Daniel says next to him, fidgeting with the kitchen towel in his hand. “I’ve been thinking, you know, how to buy condoms.”

 

Sungwoon throws away the last scoop of oil into the sink and turns around to look at Daniel. They have been talking about having actual goddamn sex, not some quick hand jobs and blow jobs in tiny rooms (not that Sungwoon does not enjoy them) but Sungwoon is nothing if not stubborn and he is not going to break his rule of condom, not even for a whole Kang Daniel.

 

“As much as I am curious if Durex will sell out if you get spotted buying one in a convenience store,” Sungwoon sighs. “I don’t think that’s a very wise idea, do you?”

 

“We can order online.” Daniel suggests.

 

“That’s an even worse idea.” Sungwoon says and turns his attention back to his own boiling pot. Daniel doesn’t reply anything but he looks both disappointed and rejected so Sungwoon kind of feels bad.

 

“Look, I’ll figure something out, ok?” He says to Daniel consolingly and Daniel brightens up a little. “Just wait a little.”

 

“Ok~” Daniel sings and wraps his arms around Sungwoon’s waist, his chin on top of Sungwoon’s head, because again, no subtlety.

 

“Yo, what the fuck.”

 

Sungwoon almost bangs his head into Daniel’s chin from the way he jerked at the sudden voice.

 

“Jaehwan, I …” Daniel mumbles. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

 

“You said we only have one ramen packet left.”

 

“Yeah, this one.” Sungwoon points at his pot. “The one I won fair and square in rock paper scissor. These…” he points to Daniel’s pot. “… are from Daniel’s hidden stash.”

 

Daniel gives him a betrayed look.

 

“You have a ramen stash!?” Jaehwan looks like he is clutching his pearls. “When we are fucking starving out there?”

 

“We had dinner two hours ago,” Daniel reminds him.

 

“Says the guy who is boiling two ramen!” Jaehwan grits out before stomping out into the hall and yelling at the whole dorm about Daniel’s stash.

 

“Hyungggg…..” Daniel turns to Sungwoon and whines. “They are gonna clean out my entire stash. I told you that in confidence.”

 

“Maybe now you’ll actually stick to your diet,” Sungwoon laughs and pats Daniel on the belly. Daniel growls. “I’ll make it up to you in blow jobs.”

 

It is kind of scary how bright Daniel’s smile can lit up a room.

 

* * *

 

Moonkyu calls him about 2 seconds after Sungwoon drops him a message to get him lube and condoms.

 

“Dude, what the fuck?”

 

“Hello, how are you? I am good, too. Thanks.” Sungwoon deadpans.

 

“Save it. Lube and condoms, really?” Moonkyu grunts. “I thought you stop being a slut.”

 

“Ok, first of all,” Sungwoon replies, offended. “I was never a slut. And second, you don’t get to talk when you were the one seeing two different people at once.”

 

Moonkyu splutters. “You know that was only because I thought that thing with Nan Hee was a one-time thing. I am not even seeing anyone these days, which is apparently not the same for you. How do you even pull someone when you are in the nation’s most scrutinized group? Like, how do you even meet … oh, oh no, it’s someone in the group, isn’t it?”

 

“I don’t want to get too much into it.” Sungwoon mumbles.

 

“Yeah, don’t.” Moonkyu replies. “Plausible deniability for me.”

 

Sungwoon rolls his eyes even though Moonkyu won’t see it. “Can you get them for me or not? I am gonna drop by at the dorm next week to get my humidifier. I don’t know if it’s because there are 11 people living here but the air is getting drier by the day and my skin keeps getting flaky.”

 

“You mean your blue humidifier?”

 

“How many humidifier do I own?” Sungwoon snorts. “Yes, that one.”

 

“Right, yeah, about that,” Moonkyu mumbles. “I put it in the living room while you were gone and kind of short circuited it last month.”

 

“What the hell!”

 

“Your lube and condoms on me?” Moonkyu chuckles awkwardly.

 

“I fucking hate you.” Sungwoon groans.

 

“Yeah, love you too. Text me the size for the condoms. Also, know that I am gonna be disappointed in you if it’s anything less than an L size.”

 

“This whole thing was a mistake.” Sungwoon mumbles. “Bye, bitch.”

 

He hangs up but then gives in and texts Moonkyu to get a dozen L size. Moonkyu replies with heart and eggplant emojis because he is a dick, and Sungwoon deleted all their recent messages.

 

* * *

 

 

The next week, Sungwoon returns from Hotshot dorm with two lube bottles, two dozen condoms and zero humidifier. He had seen his trusty appliance in all of its dead glory so he just asked Moonkyu to throw it in the trash after a few dirty glares.

 

Daniel is sprawled eagle spread on Sungwoon’s bed when he gets back, unfortunately fully-clothed and engrossed in a manhwa, barely looking up at him when Sungwoon comes in and hangs his hat onto the hat rack.

 

“I thought you went to get your humidifier.” Daniel asks, looking at Sungwoon’s empty hand.

 

“Moonkyu hyung broke it.” Sungwoon grunts and takes off his backpack.

 

“He didn’t call to tell you beforehand?” Daniel raises an eyebrow.

 

“He did. I went to get something else.” Sungwoon looks through his backpack and throws the black opaque plastic bag into Daniel’s chest.

 

“What are these?” Daniel mumbles before untying the knot. “Porn?”

 

Sungwoon snorts and takes off his shirt to change into his home-wear. “Close but no. Plus, who even has physical copies of porn these day? Get with the time, Daniel. We store things on cloud now.”

 

Daniel’s eyes widen after he sees the contents of the bag. “Hyung, you are the best!”

 

“I know,” Sungwoon winks at him.

 

“What are you guys looking at?” Daniel almost jumps and it is a miracle he didn’t throw the condoms out of the bag in his panic.

 

Sungwoon almost yells at Daehwi before remembering that this is his room too.

 

“Herb pills.” He says the first thing that comes to mind. Not that he is lying. He does have the box of herb pills Junhyuk unloaded onto him in his backpack.

 

“Ew.” Daehwi wrinkles his nose as Daniel carefully ties the plastic bag and puts it under Sungwoon’s bed. “The ones you gave me a few weeks back? They taste like horse piss.”

 

“Yeah, Junhyuk hyung’s mom made them in batches and sent over every month. I was threatened with bodily harm if I don’t take some off of his hands.”

 

“They are not that bad if you drink it down with beer.” Daniel shrugs.

 

“You think anything is not bad with beer, hyung.” Daehwi laughs and climbs up onto his top bed, dramatically flopping down onto the mattress. “It’s already 5 in the evening. Where did our off day even go?”

 

“I finished two of my manhwas. It was quite productive for me.” Daniel says.

 

“And how much packing have you got done?” Sungwoon raises an eyebrow and questions.

 

“I’ll do it later.” Daniel shrugs him off like they are not flying in six hours.

 

“Have you even looked for your winter coats?” Sungwoon sits down on the bed next to him, and pokes him in the thigh. “You do know that we are going to Hokkaido, right?”

 

“Duh,” Daniel mumbles, grabbing a handful of gummy bears from the big bag he has it opened next to Sungwoon’s pillows.

 

Sungwoon sighs. “And the reason you and your diabetes baits are here on my bed instead of your own bed is?”

 

“Because I miss you.” Daniel gives him a toothy smile.

 

“There was a moth in his room earlier,” Daehwi says from above. “Jisung hyung tried to catch it but he lost it.”

 

“Is that why you are not packing?” Sungwoon squints his eyes at Daniel.

 

“No?” Daniel mumbles. “I will do it. After this book.”

 

Sungwoon sighs and dives onto Jinyoung’s vacant bed. As much as he likes cuddling with Daniel, the dorm’s single beds are not made for two people (or at least two people who are not Daehwi-sized).

 

“Where is Jinyoung anyway?” Sungwoon asks, remembering he didn’t see Jinyoung out in the living room on his way in.

 

“He went out to meet up with his friends.” Daehwi mutters.

 

“Hmm,” Sungwoon nods before stretching himself, wondering if he should catch a nap now or catch up with some of his own friends online. He decided on the latter because Daniel will be screaming down the dorm in about an hour, yelling how he can’t fit all of his stuff into his suitcase and Sungwoon will have to help him pack anyway.

 

He is reaching for his iPad on the bedside table when Daehwi calls him, voice low. “I think … I think Jinyoung hyung is seeing someone.”

 

That interests Daniel enough that he puts down his manhwa and looks up at Daehwi. “Who?”

 

“I don’t know.” Daehwi answers, “But he is not letting me used his iPad these days and when he does, he always log out of his instagram or kakao. He never did that before.”

 

“Wanting privacy is not necessarily a bad thing.” Sungwoon reasons.

 

“Plus, he keeps disappearing on calls.” Daehwi adds in. “I mean he even talked about his contract with his agency next to me once. I can’t think of anything more secretive for him to go out to the balcony and talk for two hours.”

 

“Seongwoo hyung did tell me that he sighed a female perfume delivery for Jinyoung. He thought Jinyoung bought it for his mom or something.” Daniel says.

 

“Shit.” Sungwoon says. “Do you think he went to meet with this … girl?”

 

“Could be.” Daehwi grunts. “I told him I wanted to tag along because I want to do some shopping but he said no and gave some shitty excuse.”

 

“You sound jealous.” Daniel laughs.

 

“Erm, yeah?” Daehwi grumbles. “He is my best friend and he’s ditching me for a girl. He won’t even tell me about her.”

 

“Maybe it’s just a low-key thing. I mean he falls in love every two days.” Sungwoon says with faint hope.

 

“Yeah,” Daehwi murmurs. “What should we do? Should we tell manager hyung?”

 

“Erm. No, we should not?” Daniel asks. “Just let him be.”

 

“Jinyoung hyung isn’t exactly what you call subtle.” Daehwi says. “He’s gonna get caught one day and we will all be screwed.”

 

“So, you are gonna snitch on your best friend?” Daniel retorts. “And what? Get him to break up with his girlfriend?”

 

“It is because he is my best friend that I am scared for both him and us, and I’m trying to do something before we all got shit on for some stupid thing!” Daehwi raises his voice.

 

Sungwoon gets out of the bed before Daehwi claws Daniel’s eyes out. “Listen,” he says, with a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “We don’t even know if it is a girlfriend. This is just guess work.”

 

Daniel nods along with him.

 

“But,” Sungwoon adds in. “I agree with Daehwi. Not on telling the managers part. It’s better not to involve them unless it is absolutely necessary. We should talk to Jinyoung first. Or ask Jisung hyung. He definitely has more tact than the both of you.”

 

“It is his business,” Daniel says to Sungwoon. “He’s 18. If he wants to date, let him.”

 

“In case you didn’t remember, Niel,” Sungwoon sighs. “They didn’t put a no-relationship clause in our contract because it probably is illegal but it was very strongly implied since the first meeting that they don’t want us dating.”

 

“I am not saying he should go around Gangnam with a girl on his hand.” Daniel says. “But it is not fair to ask him to stay single if he finds someone he likes.”

 

“It is part of the give and take we all agree to when we chose this path.” Sungwoon says. “You know that.”

 

Sungwoon feels like this is the first time Daniel looks at him in anger.

 

“Forget it. I am gonna go pack.” He says and abruptly gets up, almost pushing Sungwoon over on his way out.

 

“Why is he so mad?” Daehwi mutters after Daniel.

 

“Niel.” Sungwoon follows him out across the hallway into his room. “Look.”

 

“What does that make you and me?” Daniel turns tersely and hisses. Sungwoon barely gets enough time to close and lock the room door. “You preach a lot for someone with a pack of condoms in his bag.”

 

“It is not the same thing.” Sungwoon hisses back. “We don’t even know who Jinyoung is seeing. I said it before. I don’t care about people hooking up as long as they are careful and are on equal ground.”

 

“Yeah, you knew a lot about hooking up with people on equal ground, huh?”

 

“Don’t be an asshole.” Sungwoon grits out. “You can’t tell me that you think it’s a good idea to not check in with Jinyoung.”

 

“And if he really is dating someone, what are you going to do?”

 

“There is nothing I can do. Am I gonna tell Jinyoung that it is risky and a bad idea? Yeah, but what more can I do?”

 

“A bad idea, huh?” Daniel says. “So, what are we then?”

 

Sungwoon stiffens up. “We are not dating. You know that.”

 

“Of course, we are not.” Daniel laughs bitterly. “We are just hooking up, just like you do with everyone else.”

 

“Niel, if you are expecting –”

 

“I need to pack.” Daniel turns and starts pulling out the suitcase under his bed.

 

“Niel, look,” Sungwoon follows after him but Daniel just swerves past him and opens the room door, message loud and clear.

 

“Just go, hyung. You are right. I need to look for my winter coats. Let me do it in peace.”

 

Sungwoon sighs. “Ok. Talk to me later.”

 

Daniel doesn’t reply.

 

Daehwi is lurking near their own room door when Sungwoon goes back into his room.

 

“Is he still mad?”

 

“He is not mad at you,” Sungwoon smiles lifelessly. “And don’t worry too much. I’ll talk to Jinyoung or ask Jisung hyung to talk to him.”

 

“Ok,” Daehwi nods and bites at his lips nervously. “I shouldn’t have brought it up without knowing for sure.”

 

“It’s ok,” Sungwoon reaches over to squeeze him in the arm reassuringly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

 

It was Sungwoon who did.

 

* * *

 

Hokkaido is freezing, and who knows, the bitter cold is apparently bad for your bare skin. Despite the layers of moisturizer on his face and lips, and the constant application of heated pouches onto his cheeks, Sungwoon can feel the pinpricks of the ice sharp temperature piercing at his skin before it eventually turns numb.

 

Whose bright idea was it for them to do an all-natural CF for winter clothing at a Hokkaido ski resort anyway?

 

The shoot was hectic and overrun because the sunlight hours are short, and Sungwoon does not have the chance to talk to anyone about anything. If he is not in front of a camera, he is too busy shoving his entire head into a heated blanket until he can feel the blood thawing in his cheek anyway. And when the shoot ended, they had been awake for 30 hours straight so Sungwoon forgets about any bridge he has to mend (or break down). If the mood is weird between him and Daniel, no one mentioned anything anyway, except for Daehwi who kept looking over at Sungwoon worriedly every time Daniel resolutely avoids talking to either of them.

 

They get a little breather the next day after the shoot since the bus that would take them to Sapporo for their appearances on a few local stations and radio shows won’t arrive until midnight. They are rooming according to the dorm arrangement and Sungwoon is starting to think he won’t get an opportunity to talk to Daniel alone for the entirety of this trip.

 

But he has plenty of time to talk to Jinyoung.

 

Which he did. Turned out Jinyoung really was dating a girl. ‘ _Was_ ’ being the operative here.

 

“You dumped her?” Daehwi asks, once Jinyoung calmed down from thinking that he got cornered by Daehwi and Sungwoon, and finally confessed that he was seeing one of his class mates.

 

“Why would I dump her? I loved her.” Jinyoung said, and Sungwoon might believe it if he also doesn’t know that Jinyoung also probably loved the last girl he was infatuated with.

 

“Wow, she dumped you?” Daehwi asks in surprise. “Why?”

 

“She said it’s uncomfortable. The attention she got from people.”

 

“Wait. People know you were dating?” Sungwoon almost clutches his heart. “How is this not on Pann yet?”

 

“No,” Jinyoung answers meekly. “Do you remember that time I had to skip out on a practice session the other week because I have a school gathering?”

 

“Yeah, the gathering that you could have easily skipped. I skip mines all the times.” Daehwi says.

 

“I wanted to see her.” Jinyoung mumbles. “Anyway, I might have, I don’t know, pay her more attention or stick too close to her at that gathering because she said that after that thing, some junior girls start shit talking her and what not, you know, saying she was trying to flirt with me or whatever. It is stupid.”

 

“Jesus,” Sungwoon groans.

 

“Yeah, and they don’t even think we are dating. They probably think she’s out to seduce me or something, and she thinks it’d only get worse if we are seen together more. Plus, I can’t even see her every ten days. What kind of a boyfriend is that?”

 

She seems like a wise girl to Sungwoon, but he doesn’t say it out loud.

 

“I am sorry.” He says instead. Jinyoung nods, face gloomy now that he doesn’t have to pretend to be fine, and Sungwoon knows he doesn’t think much of Jinyoung’s love stories, but it is clear that it had affected him more than Sungwoon assumed. “Do you need anything? Didn’t you say the last time that you want to try beer? I can get you maybe one or two can.”

 

“Nah,” Jinyoung shakes his head. “Not now. I think it is best for now if I have a hold on my thoughts. Don’t know what kind of things I’ll be blubbing if I get drunk.”

 

Jinyoung is so young – they all are, they all look so young and act so young at times that Sungwoon forgets they are his colleagues on the same career paths, and maybe they do think and care about their career as much as Sungwoon does.

 

“That’s probably for the best.” Sungwoon says.

 

“I wasn’t even going to say anything about it to any one of you but this one…” Jinyoung turns his head to glare at Daehwi, “… apparently is too nosy.”

 

“Yah,” Daehwi gives him a sad face and pushes him a little. “I told you I was only worried for you. Plus, she is the one who dumped you. Otherwise, you’d still be seeing her and do you know how dangerous it is?”

 

“Yeah, well, not like it matters now, is it?” Jinyoung says, and rubs at his face roughly.

 

Daehwi sighs and stares dejectedly at Jinyoung’s hunched figure before wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “Do you wanna go out? You said you wanted to go to that light festival in town.”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Jinyoung snorts. “Jung Woo hyung would kill us before we can set foot outside the hotel. And that might be a better fate than running into some stalker fans out there.”

 

“He doesn’t need to know.” Daehwi says. “Plus, it is -6’C out there. It is only normal to cover our entire bodies and three quarters of our face.”

 

“You can go through the ski rental center door instead of the front door.” Sungwoon suggests, remembering the ski rental center inter-connected to the hotel he saw this morning. Normally, he’d think that it is a bad idea to be sneaking out without supervision but he thinks Jinyoung probably needs this right now. “Do you want me to come with you?”

 

“Nah, it’s fine.” Daehwi shakes his head, and pulls at Jinyoung, who is starting to look interested. “I came here to ski a lot when I was living in Osaka. I know my way around.”

 

“Don’t stay out too late though,” Sungwoon says, “And keeps your phones with you.”

 

“Yeah, sure.” Daehwi nods, slipping onto his winter coat and beanie. “It is, what, 15 minutes walk, so we should be back in like 40 minutes or an hour max.”

 

“And we are never gonna tell this to Jisung hyung.” Sungwoon reminds them.

 

“And we are never gonna tell this to Jisung hyung.” Daehwi nods and swears solemnly.

 

“All of it,” Jinyoung adds in. “Including that part about me.”

 

“Of course,” Sungwoon nods. “All of this is off the records for Jisung hyung and any one else.”

  
“Maybe Daniel hyung.” Daehwi says apprehensively. “I sort of told him … about you as well.”

 

Jinyoung glowers at Daehwi.

 

“I’ll talk to him.” Sungwoon says. “Don’t worry.”

 

“Yeah, do you want to get coffee for the walk?” Daehwi grins sheepishly at a still glowering Jinyoung and pulls him out of the room. “Seongwoo hyung was saying yesterday that the matcha latte downstairs are great.”

 

Sungwoon pokes his head out of the room and watches the two of them walk down the thankfully deserted hallway, just in case Jung Woo or any other manager hyungs and noonas jump out from their rooms four doors down and catch them in their sneaking act. Hopefully, the managers are all assuming that the members will be catching some precious sleep before they have to leave in the middle of the night for Sapporo.

 

Which is what Daniel is probably doing now, but there is no harm in trying since this is most likely the only time Sungwoon is going to be alone for the next few days. He opted for sending Daniel a kakao message instead of go knocking on his door because it would be difficult to explain to Jisung and Seongwoo what is going on. Messages are not a guaranteed way of getting Daniel to talk to him but Sungwoon tries his luck and sends a simple ‘Come over’ to Daniel.

 

He half expected Daniel not to even read his message so he is surprised when a knock comes about ten minutes later, after he gets comfortable on his bed and starts getting into this weird anime playing on the hotel TV.

 

He opens the door to see Daniel in a thick worn out sweater and messy hair, and it sucks that they are not really on the best terms right now because Sungwoon would have hit that with the force of a thousands undying suns otherwise.

 

“You came.” Sungwoon says dumbly instead, and lets Daniel into the room.

 

“You asked,” Daniel answer stiffly. “Where’s Jinyoung and Daehwi?”

 

“They went out to see the light festival.”

 

“They what?!” Daniel yelps.

 

“Jinyoung broke up with his girlfriend,” Sungwoon says to placate him. “I thought it might be easier for him if he gets a change of sceneries and some times off.”

 

“You asked him to break up with his girlfriend?” Daniel raises an eyebrow. “He admitted he had one?”

 

“Give me some credit,” Sungwoon says and sits down on the queen size bed that Jinyoung and Daehwi are sharing. “I wasn’t about to ask him to break up if he hadn’t. Plus, she broke it off with him. It’s a long story.”

 

“Right,” Daniel snorts. “No wonder he’s been sulking all day.”

 

“Takes one to know one, isn’t it?” Sungwoon says and Daniel glares at him.

 

“Is that all? Did you just want to give me an update on Jinyoung?”

 

“No,” Sungwoon sighs. “I want to talk.”

 

Daniel sniffles and wipes at his flushed nose with the sleeve of his sweater.

 

“Are you alright?” Sungwoon asks. Daniel has been dealing with a runny nose the whole day. “Do you need to see a doctor or something?”

 

“It’s the cold. I’ll live.” Daniel shrugs. “You said you want to talk. Talk.”

 

Sungwoon holds his breath. Well, here goes nothing.

 

“We happened so fast, no, not fast, sudden. Everything happened between us so suddenly and I think maybe that didn’t really let us align our expectations.”

 

“And what expectations are we supposed to be aligning?”

 

“I can’t give you a relationship, Daniel.” Sungwoon says. “I am not the kind of guy that date.”

 

“No, you are just the kind of guy that kneels on a toilet floor to blow another guy in secret.” Daniel spats, and Sungwoon bites his tongue. Daniel is kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde once you gets close to him enough – in this case, Jekyll being the bright upbeat guy that he usually is and Hyde being the occasional sarcastic cold person when his defense mechanisms are up.

 

“Sorry,” Daniel says after a whistle of silence. “I didn’t mean it.”

 

“No, you did,” Sungwoon sighs. “And that’s fine. You probably are right.”

 

“What do you want from me?” Daniel asks.

 

Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? What does Sungwoon want from Daniel? He wants Daniel to keep looking at him like he wants to own him. He wants Daniel to keep touching him like he actually does own him. He wants Daniel to sleep next to him and smiles at him in the morning, and he wants a lot of things from Daniel, more than what Sungwoon can probably give back.

 

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what I should want.” Sungwoon answers.

 

“That’s fucked up, isn’t it?” Daniel says.

 

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that you honestly think being in a relationship with anyone, let alone me, right now, is a good idea.”

 

“I am not asking your fucking hand in marriage.” Daniel grinds his teeth. “I don’t want you to just treat me like one of your hook ups.”

 

“I don’t. You are my friend.” Sungwoon says pleadingly. “And you are important to me. But a relationship, if that’s what you want, I cannot give you that.”

 

“If you care about me and we are already fucking, then what is the problem? You want to have options opened for other people?”

 

“I don’t want anyone else, Niel.” Sungwoon grits out.

 

“Then how is it different from a relationship?”

 

“It is different when it ends.”

 

Daniel laughs bitterly and looks away.

 

“When this is over, I don’t want us to be ignoring, or even worse, hating each other. If I run into you two years down the line, I want us to easily fall back into being good friends instead of being awkward or avoiding each other.”

 

“That’s chicken shit mentality and I never took you for a coward.”

 

“I take calculated risks, Daniel. Doesn’t mean I am going to put my heart on the line.”

 

“So, you, what?” Daniel runs his fingers through his already messy hair. “Don’t mind us holding hands and flirting and fucking like we are in some resemblance of a normal relationship except for an expiry date and an ending clause?”

 

“Nothing in our life is normal.” Sungwoon replies. “Normal people don’t work for 40 hours straight without sleep. Normal people don’t get hated on for breathing wrongly. Normal people don’t get branded gifts from strangers. We are not normal and we can’t have a normal relationship. You know that.”

 

“I am tired.” Daniel rubs at his eyes, and says softly. “I am gonna go catch some sleep before the bus comes.”

 

Sungwoon bites at his thumb anxiously. He is not sure if he has made things worse or better, but he feels like he has said everything he can possibly say outside of laying his soul bare in front of Daniel.

 

“Stop giving me the silence treatment at least.” He asks. “We are still friends, right?”

 

“Right, yeah.” Daniel shakes his head and says distractedly in a way that doesn’t exactly bestow much confidence into Sungwoon.

 

“Ok,” Sungwoon says instead of arguing more and gets up. He almost reaches out to touch Daniel in habit but he catches himself and keeps his hands to himself in time. “Get some sleep then. Do you want some Panadol? You keeps sniffling.”

 

“I’m fine.” Daniel says and heads out. Sungwoon doesn’t follow him.

 

Instead, he just sits down back at the edge of the bed, head in his hands and lets out the heaviest sigh of his life, but it doesn’t feel like the dense tug inside of him has gone away with his exhaled breath. Maybe Daniel will come to his senses as the time passes, but time is his most threatening enemy right now. Sungwoon does not want to spend whatever precious few months they have left with a distanced Daniel. He can cite disrupted group dynamics and bad public image as the reasoning for his fear if Daniel does not want to be around him, but the truth is that it is going to hurt so much and fuck him up more than he would like to admit and he doesn’t want to deal with it.

 

There is rapid knocks on the door and Sungwoon gets up in his daze, wondering if the staff has found out about Daehwi and Jinyoung because he does not have enough problems for the night.

 

But Daniel is standing at the door when he pulls it open.

 

“Niel…” Sungwoon starts, truly stunned. “What…”

 

“Can you promise me that you really won’t fuck around with anyone else?” Daniel interrupts.

 

“I already told you I don’t want anyone else.” Sungwoon replies. “And I won’t.”

 

“And that I am not just some meaningless hook-up for you.”

 

Sungwoon does not know or want to guess where Daniel is going with this, but he answers truthfully. “You never are. How many times do I have to say that you matter to me?”

 

“Ok,” Daniel nods, hands gripped white on the edge of the door. “Ok.”

 

“Ok what?”

 

“You are right about one thing. I can’t imagine us hating each other. It’s already bad enough fighting with you.”

 

“Niel…”

 

Daniel steps inside the room, and locks the door behind him. “I will let you go when the time comes. I mean, we practically signed our expiration date on a paper, it’s gonna come, and we will say our good byes and go when it does. But until then, be with me, and only me.”

 

Sungwoon stares up at Daniel in his messed up hair, flushed red nose and bloodshot eyes with dark circles underneath them, and thinks he hasn’t seen anything more beautiful.

 

Daniel’s lips are cold when Sungwoon whispers an “ok” into them but they warm up quickly, as do Daniel’s hands once they settle on Sungwoon’s jaws.

 

Sungwoon feels like he can free fall all the way down, heart first and head later, but the hardness that comes with every heart break and failure and obstacle surrounds his heart like a lead weight and he does not have the courage to cut it loose. It is the only thing keeping him in check, keeping him survived, and even if Daniel is offering his hand, Sungwoon is not ready to let go yet.


	3. Chapter 3

“I can’t believe you actually brought these to Japan.” Daniel stares incredulously at the pack of condoms and the lube bottle Sungwoon threw at his bare chest. “We weren’t even talking when we came here.”

 

“I can’t exactly leave them in the dorm, Niel.” Sungwoon says. “Remember when the cleaning ladies told the staff about those Vodka bottles under your bed the last time we were abroad? Imagine that but with condoms.”

 

“Point,” Daniel acknowledges and picks up the lube bottle like it is a foreign object.

 

“C’mon,” Sungwoon says softly and gets back onto the bed, reaching for Daniel’s waistband.

 

They have been in Sapporo for a day and a half, running from schedule to schedule, and Daniel asked to skip the dinner today because his cold has been getting worse and Sungwoon left dinner early as well, giving the same excuse. He did not have any cold but he really did have the best intentions, ok? Daniel had progressed from sniffles to coughs and Sungwoon just wanted to check in on him, maybe force some cold medicine down Daniel’s throat if he has to.

 

He wasn’t really expecting Daniel to pounce on him the moment he gets back to the hotel, the coughs and the sniffles all forgotten. And Sungwoon truly wanted to stop Daniel, ask him to just rest up while he can but then Daniel was lifting him up against the wall, his large hands grasping at Sungwoon’s ass, his lips all over Sungwoon’s neck, and all cognitive processes in Sungwoon’s mind ceased.

 

“You all right?” Sungwoon asks. Daniel is quieter than usual, only the harsh intakes of breath audible from him when Sungwoon slips his hand inside Daniel’s boxer and strokes Daniel’s quickly hardening cock.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel nods and flips him over so Sungwoon suddenly is on his back with Daniel looming over him. Daniel leans down to kiss him before searching for the abandoned lube bottle and struggles with opening the cap, not making eye contact with Sungwoon, and squeezing what is definitely a too much amount of lube onto his open palm.

 

“Dude,” Sungwoon says, reaching for the tissue box before the lubricant on Daniel’s hand can spill over to the bed.

 

“Shit, sorry.” Daniel flushes, and wipes at his hand with the tissue that Sungwoon is handing him.

 

“Daniel,” Sungwoon takes a hold of Daniel’s hand and says. “Is this your first time?”

 

“No,” Daniel answers. “I told you. I have had girlfriends before.”

 

“I mean with a guy.” Sungwoon asks again, and Daniel doesn’t answer, which obviously, is a yes.

 

“I’ve done other stuffs,” Daniel says defensively. “Just not this.”

 

“That’s kind of hot.”

 

Daniel snorts. “You have a virgin kink?”

 

“No,” Sungwoon laughs and holds himself up on his elbows to kiss Daniel. “But I like when I am the one to lead.”

 

“I am still kind of scared to, you know,” Daniel worries his lower lip. “Take it up the ass.”

 

Sungwoon almost laughs out loud. “Do you want to though?”

 

“I don’t know.” Daniel mumbles. “Maybe?”

 

“Good thing I am flexible then.” Sungwoon says and takes the lube bottle from Daniel. “I can show you the wonders of anal later, but for now, I am kind of expecting to get your cock up my ass soon so do you think you can get on with that?”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Daniel nods enthusiastically and Sungwoon just shakes his head in amusement, coating him fingers with a good amount of lube before reaching down between his legs. He hasn’t been fucked in months so even the first knuckle is a little difficult and he has to work his way in slowly.

 

“Fuck, that is so hot.” Daniel mumbles, his eyes fixed on Sungwoon’s fingers working hard and his hand on his own cock.

 

“Might move faster if you help, idiot.” Sungwoon mumbles before beckoning Daniel over. “Get your fingers wet but don’t waste too much. It’s hard enough getting this one bottle.”

 

“Ok,” Daniel nods, and it is kind of ridiculous how careful he is being with the lube bottle but he gets the gist and soon, his hand is next to Sungwoon, hovering uselessly. Sungwoon takes out his fingers and guide Daniel’s inside, biting his lips down to not yell out when Daniel’s obviously larger fingers make their way in.

 

“Too much?” Daniel asks worriedly.

 

“No, I’m good.” Sungwoon turns his head and grunts out. He’d like nothing more than Daniel to sit there and play with him for hours, making Sungwoon sweat and needy before he eventually gets Daniel in him, but they are kind of on a schedule here, and by his estimate, the dinner going on at the ramen inn two blocks over is going to end in roughly 30 to 40 minutes so they really do not have the luxury of extended foreplay. “I can take another.”

 

“You sure?” Daniel asks, but his third finger joins the rest soon and Sungwoon is close to panting, urging at Daniel to move his fingers faster so Sungwoon can loosen up. He grabs at Daniel’s hand when he feels like he is ready (and also because he is going to cum soon if Daniel keeps rubbing them the right way), and throws a condom at Daniel before shifting himself onto all fours.

  
When in doubt, go missionary, right?

 

“Do I need to teach you how to put on a condom as well?” He turns his head back to a staring Daniel and says.

  
Daniel shakes himself out of his stupor and tears open the wrapper before slicking the condom onto himself and aligning himself behind Sungwoon. The first push hurts and Sungwoon must have made some kind of pained noise because Daniel almost pulls out if not for Sungwoon’s panted reassurances.

 

“I’m fine.” Sungwoon lays his head down on the pillow so he have something to bite his teeth into, and says. “Just… give me a sec.”

 

“You know, you are really not giving me any confidence for, what did you call it, _the wonders of anal_?”

 

Sungwoon laughs, but reaches his hand back to pat at Daniel’s arm on his waist. “C’mon.”

 

Daniel pushes in torturously slow, inch by inch. Sungwoon wants to tell him to hurry up but honestly speaking, this is probably easier on his ass. He really does not want to be limping when they go to tonight’s radio show.

 

“Fuck,” Daniel pants out when he is almost all the way in, leaning his sweaty forehead onto the back of Sungwoon’s neck. “You are so fucking tight. I could just come from this.”

 

“If you come immediately after taking 10 fucking minutes to get into me,” Sungwoon turns his head and nudges at Daniel until he raises his head to kiss Sungwoon. “I am never gonna have sex with you again.”

 

Daniel’s muted laughter dissolves in between Sungwoon’s lips and when Daniel thrusts forward, Sungwoon almost bites down at Daniel’s lips from the force of it. Daniel must have been pretty goddamn familiar with this part because he needs no hand holding from the way he is holding onto Sungwoon’s hips and thrusting into Sungwoon like he is made for this. Eventually, Sungwoon opts for lying down flat onto the bed on his stomach because while missionary is good for easy access, it is not good for his knees. His dick rubs at the towel he pre laid out onto the mattress for minimal mess and good thing they are at a good hotel with soft enough towels because otherwise he is gonna end up with rashes on his dick.

 

Daniel stops his movements and pulls out and Sungwoon groans at the sudden emptiness, but then Daniel is flipping him over so they are facing each other and pushing back into him with a smooth glide. Sungwoon moans out loud but his voice is disrupted by Daniel’s tongue in his mouth. Daniel’s lips move down to Sungwoon’s neck, biting hard enough for Sungwoon’s skin to sting.

 

“Don’t leave marks.” Sungwoon grunts and Daniel makes some kind of protesting noise but his lips leave Sungwoon’s neck and come back to Sungwoon’s mouth.

 

Sungwoon needs more pressure on his dick instead of the occasional brush against Daniel’s stomach so he sneaks a hand down there but Daniel reaches first and grips Sungwoon tight. Sungwoon tries his best to not yell out loud when Daniel’s rough thumb brushes over the tip of his dick.

 

“Close,” he mumbles among the soft incoherent noises he is making, and Daniel strokes his dick faster.

 

“Do you want me to blow you?” Daniel says and that is a tempting offer. But. “No, I want to come with you in me.” Sungwoon moans and Daniel curses something before pushing in even harder. Sungwoon comes all over Daniel’s hand and possibly not on the towel as he expected but he is too far gone to care about that or anything at all. He misses this, an actual good fuck and he holds onto Daniel’s shoulders firmer and lets Daniel strokes him down until he is spent and sensitive.

 

He reaches for Daniel’s hand around his dick, whimpering about being too sensitive. Daniel’s hand comes back wet but he wipes it down on the towel before gripping Sungwoon’s hand tight, intertwining their fingers. Daniel’s thrusts are becoming more frantic with no rhythm behind them. He must be close.

 

Sungwoon reaches for Daniel’s head with his free hand and pulls it towards him so he can kiss Daniel again. Daniel lips land all across Sungwoon’s face – lips, cheeks, nose and Daniel is panting small hisses with each kiss. Sungwoon tightens down on him and Daniel grits through his teeth, burying his face in Sungwoon’s neck and sucking at the skin there.

 

“Sorry,” Daniel slurs. “No mark.”

 

“It’s ok.” Sungwoon swallows and gives in. “Do whatever you want to me.”

 

“Fuck,” Daniel swears and bites down on Sungwoon’s neck. Sungwoon wouldn’t be surprised if he has a ring of teeth mark around his neck later. Whatever. Turtlenecks and scarves exist. “I’m coming.”

 

“Do it,” Sungwoon whispers and kisses down blindly at Daniel’s head. “C’mon baby. You are so good.”

 

Daniel gasps out little breathes into Sungwoon’s neck when he climaxes and Sungwoon grips hard at his neck, burning every little exhale of Daniel’s breath into his mind. He can feel the rise and fall of Daniel’s chest on his and it eventually settles down as Daniel slowly calm downs, his tongue doing little kitten licks at Sungwoon’s stinging neck and his dick softening inside Sungwoon.

 

They stay that way for a while, Sungwoon just staring at the expensive-looking chandelier on the ceiling and gently stroking across Daniel’s broad back while Daniel just silently lie there on top of Sungwoon, his breath tickling past Sungwoon’s Adam’s Apple. But Sungwoon came quite a while ago and it is getting stickier and grosser by the second, and they probably don’t have much time left before the others are back so Sungwoon gently pushes Daniel out of him and off of him.

 

Daniel sighs and groans but gets off easily, walking awkwardly into the attached bathroom. Sungwoon bundles up the towel and gives his stomach a rough wipe before accessing the damage on the bed. Luckily, there isn’t much so he just gives it a brief wipe and follows Daniel into the bathroom.

 

Daniel is flushing the used condom down the toilet, which is probably a good idea, not for the Sapporo drainage system, but for them in case there is any fan or hotel worker crazy enough to dig through Wanna One’s trash. Sungwoon washes the towel in the bathtub and uses the wet towel to wipe himself better.

 

“You are a hypocrite about marks.” Daniel says and Sungwoon turns around to see Daniel checking out the back of his shoulder in the mirror, especially the area filled with scratch mark. Oops. Sungwoon should really cut his nails.

 

“I let you anyway, didn’t I?” Sungwoon says and checks his own damage in the form of a rapidly forming hickey on his neck. Sungwoon touches at it and glares at Daniel.

 

“Now I have to wear turtlenecks for the rest of the trip.”

 

“Good thing it is minus zero out there.” Daniel grins and Sungwoon snorts before pushing him out of the way to get his Vaseline bottle from his toiletry bag.

 

“You really do have anything in your bag.” Daniel comments.

 

“Of course I have Vaseline. I am not an animal.” Sungwoon says before grabbing Daniel by the shoulder to turn him around so Sungwoon can apply some onto his back.

 

Daniel laughs. “Yeah, we are all animals for not carrying the whole of our house in our suitcase.”

 

“Well, at least I am not the one that has to beg manager hyung to run to the closet mall and buy underwear on the first day.”

 

Daniel laughs. “That was only because I was mad at you while I was packing. Plus, you can never have enough underwear!”

 

Sungwoon closes the Vaseline bottle back after he applies a good amount, and pats at Daniel’s shoulders.

 

“I’m glad you are not mad at me anymore.”

 

Daniel smiles and turns around, leaning his head in to kiss Sungwoon.

 

“Yeah, me too.”

 

* * *

  

“I am so mad at you!” Sungwoon croaks. “I hate you and I am going to choke you to death.”

 

“Please.” Daniel croaks back from the other end of the hospital room. “Do it before I actually cough my entire lungs out.”

 

“Bastard.” Sungwoon mutters. “I can’t believe you gave me the fucking flu.”

 

“At least it is not STDs?” Daniel turns his head to grin at Sungwoon and immediately goes into a coughing fit, and then subsequently into groans because he accidentally pulls at his IV tube like he does every time he violently coughs. It is a tragedy to watch, really. Sungwoon might actually feel sorry for him if he also did not transmit his stupid cold to Sungwoon and now Sungwoon is here in adjacent hospital beds with Daniel, hooked onto his own IV.

 

“I hate you.” Sungwoon reiterates and screws his eyes shut, wondering if killing himself will make this monstrous headache go away.

 

* * *

 

 

“Stop eating all my pudding.” Daniel grunts.

 

“You said you don’t have appetite!” Jihoon says, licking the spoon clean and going in for another big scoop. “It’d be a waste if it’s left over.”

 

“I do have to eat.” Daniel reminds him. “Whether I have an appetite or not.”

 

“Whatever,” Jihoon says but at least puts the spoon down and closes the lid of the plastic pudding tub. “You can always ask your mom to make more.”

 

“Why are you here?” Sungwoon asks as Daniel glares at Jihoon.

 

“To grace you with my company. What else?”

 

“All you did was barging in, yelling a ‘Yo’ and going straight for my pudding.” Daniel reminds him.

 

“Your point?” Jihoon blinks at him innocently, and Daniel swears something mumbled at him.

 

“Are you really going to treat someone who brought all your stupid manhwa books…” Jihoon grunts and drops the heavy backpack he had with him onto Daniel’s bed. “…and Sungwoon hyung’s stupid eye gel patch all the way over? What even is an eye gel patch?”

 

“Gel patch for the eyes,” Sungwoon says distractedly as Daniel happily digs into the backpack. “Help me put it in the fridge.”

 

Jihoon rolls his eyes but does as he is told.

 

“We all had to get medical check up because of you two idiots, ok? The least you can do is give me some pudding.” Jihoon mumbles.

 

“Watch who you are calling idiots.” Daniel grunts. “Where’s the rest of the guys?”

 

“I lose the rock scissor paper.” Jihoon shrugs and Sungwoon snorts.

 

“Feeling the love, really. Thanks.”

 

“All you do is whine anyway.” Jihoon rolls his eyes. “You should be glad that you can just sleep for a couple of days without doing anything.”

 

“I won’t really call lying down with 200 pounds of mucus up my nose _resting_.” Sungwoon says and Jihoon grimaces. “Anyway, what’s the schedule today? You are still in makeup.”

 

“We went to that festival in Busan.” Jihoon says and turns to Daniel with a glint in his eyes. “Had our lunch at Choryang Milmyeon actually.”

 

Daniel glares up at him. “I hate you and your glittery eyebrows.”

 

“Hey,” Jung Woo pushes the hospital door open. “Oh Jihoon, you came? Anyway, I talked to the doctors. You guys are getting discharged tomorrow morning.”

 

“Thank fuck.” Daniel mumbles.

 

“Watch your language,” Jung Woo mumbles. “But I agree. If I have to spend one more night in that tiny visitor bed, I am going to get myself pneumonia to move to a patient bed.”

 

“Sorry hyung.” Sungwoon says sincerely. Jung Woo has been assigned to stay with them at the hospital over the entire course, and it mustn’t have been easy on him.

 

“Comes with the job.” Jung Woo shrugs. “Jihoon, anyone picking you up?”

 

“Yeah, Sang Geon hyung went to drop the members of at the dorm. He said to call him when I want to leave.”

 

“I am gonna head to the dorms to get some fresh clothes for these two and maybe some dinner that isn’t hospital canteen food. You wanna tag along or stay here longer?”

 

“I’ll come.” Jihoon says. “Daniel hyung is not letting me eat his pudding anyway.”

 

Jihoon sticks his tongue out at Daniel on his way out and Daniel rolls his eyes after him.

 

“At least we got out of here tomorrow.” Sungwoon says and gets up from his bed to head to the toilet. He had been feeling much better since yesterday and he was never good with staying still in one place anyway.

 

“Hmm,” Daniel just mumbles after him, back to getting absorbed in his comic books.

 

Sungwoon heads to the plastic chair in front of Daniel’s bedside table instead of his own bed when he gets out of the washroom, and opens up the half eaten pudding tub.

 

“Not you too.” Daniel sighs.

 

“Your mom said it’s for the both of us.” Sungwoon reminds him and shoves a spoonful into his mouth before scooping one more to feed Daniel.

 

“I want to eat wantons from Choryang Milmyeon.” Daniel whines with a spoonful of pudding in his mouth.

 

“You big baby,” Sungwoon shakes his head and motions at Daniel to scoot over. The visitor chair is tiny and rigid. He wonders if it is to make sure visitors don’t stay too long.

 

He sits down on the bed with his legs crossed, back resting against the metal headboard of Daniel’s bed. Daniel throws his blanket over Sungwoon’s legs and lays his head down on Sungwoon’s shoulder, closing his book.

 

“I hate hospitals.” Daniel says.

 

Sungwoon gives him another scoop of pudding. “Nobody likes hospitals.”

 

“When I was like 12,” Daniel says. “My mom had an operation. Appendicitis. I mean, it was nothing that serious, but I was young and you know, scared. Plus, all the dramas airing at that time made it seems like if someone is in the hospital, they are going to die.”

 

Sungwoon can’t help but laugh.

 

“I’m serious.” Daniel tsks disapprovingly. “It was a very traumatic time for the young me, ok? I had to sleep at the hospital because dad didn’t want to leave me by myself at home when he slept at the hospital. It was terrible. I couldn’t sleep properly until my mom got discharged.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Sungwoon wraps his arm around Daniel’s shoulder and rubs at it soothingly.

 

“It is the silence.” Daniel mumbles. “I mean, apart from the occasional machine beeps, it is so fucking quiet at night and this doesn’t make sense but it feels like the silence echoes through the halls, you know? Magnifies it.”

 

“Is that why you toss and turn every night?” Sungwoon asks. Daniel had been relentless throughout the nights here and had been sleeping through the day, but Sungwoon just assumed it is just Daniel’s bad sleeping habits times the fever.

 

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep very well. Even with my music on.”

 

Sungwoon just sighs and buries his nose into Daniel’s hair. He got the special nurse to wash it this morning so it smells like the standard chemical shampoo with an undertone of _Daniel_. “You could have just asked me to, I don’t know, talk or something.”

 

“You slept like a baby.” Daniel snorts. “I was kind of jealous.”

 

Sungwoon laughs, half guilty.

 

“You can talk now.” Daniel says.

 

“About what?”

 

“I don’t know.” Daniel shrugs. “Tell me something. Something funny.”

 

Sungwoon does. He told Daniel about the time he mistook a vine for a snake and fell off a tree in his grandpa’s field when he was 6. He told Daniel about the time he tried to skip school following the steps of his seniors in middle school, but ended up misjudging where to land after scaling the wall and diving straight into the mud puddle on the other side of the school wall. He told Daniel about the time he got so drunk and puked inside Taehyun’s shoes – only the left ones, for some reason. He almost lost his life right there and then.

 

Daniel laughs, makes noises at the right points of the story and holds Sungwoon’s hand throughout Sungwoon’s tales of wonderful fuck ups, and his breathing gets calmer and more even. Sungwoon wonders if he is going to fall asleep.

 

“Tell me about the times when you were happy.” Daniel says softly. “Like truly happy.”

 

Sungwoon gets silent for a while. If this was an interview question, he would have said the time his name was called at that final stage, and he won’t be lying but that won’t be too accurate either. He was happy but happiness was just one facets of what he was feeling back then – fear, relief, overwhelming uncertainty. Sungwoon doesn’t think he truly experienced the pure happiness and happiness alone back then.

 

“When I was younger,” he settles on one of his favorite memories instead. “Middle school young. Every summer harvest season, my grandparents sent me to go and live in Gwangju with my aunt’s family for a while. There were a lot of works to be done around the fields with big machineries and I was always a careless kid. Almost got my hand cut off in an auto seeder one time. Anyway, they’d drop me off in Gwangju and pick me up a week later.”

 

“You like Gwangju?” Daniel asks.

 

“It was ok. Nothing too outstanding.” Sungwoon shrugs. “What I love was the train rides. It barely took 2 hours to get to Gwangju but I love them. I love trains and my grandparents, you know, they were always busy. My grandpa is always in the fields and my grandma is running the business of selling all the products so we don’t really get to spend a lot of times together, all three of us. But when we get on the train, it’s like even they got into the mood of summer vacation, you know. They stopped talking about business and just enjoyed the views and talked about useless things. You know those steamed peanuts they used to sell at the stations when we were kids?”

 

Daniel nods into his neck.

 

“My grandpa would buy like packets of it and peeled them all through the train ride for me and my grandma. The thing is grandma does it a lot better than him. He got shells everywhere. Got told off by a lot of train attendants, but he won’t let my grandma do it. Told her she can sit still and relax for 2 hours out of the entire year.”

 

“That’s a nice story.” Sungwoon cannot see Daniel but he can almost hear the smile in Daniel’s voice. “Is that why you always say your ideal date is a train ride?”

 

“I do?” Sungwoon mumbles. Usually, when questions like that come up in interviews or fan meets, he just say whatever that comes to his mind that sounds romantic and age-appropriate. He must have answered train rides a lot of the times for Daniel to notice.

 

“Let’s go to Busan together sometimes.” Daniel is mumbling, half asleep. “Just us. Let’s take the train.”

 

“So that you can eat Choryang Milmyeon?” Sungwoon teases, but Daniel doesn’t answer, already asleep.

 

Sungwoon sighs and finishes up the pudding, throwing the empty tub into the waste basket next to the bed. Daniel’s bed is right next to the window so the setting sun is shining down via the open blinds. He thinks about getting up to close them but he doesn’t want to wake Daniel up and Daniel doesn’t seem to mind the stripes of lights falling onto his face anyway.

 

It is not exactly the same but it reminds him of the sunset train rides he took with his grandparents. His grandma always loves the sunsets so she refused to draw the curtain no matter how much grandpa complaint and Sungwoon remembered looking at her face, bathed in the golden red light of sun as she gazes out of the train window and eventually dozes off next to it, his grandpa grumpy at her but never failing to get up and close the curtains once she fell asleep.

 

He cranes his head to look down at Daniel’s sun-bathed face, soft and painfully young and Sungwoon just … wants. He wants so badly that he can feel it down in his bones but he swallows it down, pushes that hunger into a tiny dark corner of his mind and pretends it never existed.

 

The problem with lying to yourself is you no longer know where the lie ends and where the truth begins.

 

* * *

 

Winter eventually melts into summer. Sungwoon’s birthday comes and goes. Daniel gets him a new humidifier and a new box of condoms he refused to divulge the source from. They record and practice, perform and win awards, shoot CFs and shows, do concerts and fanmeets. The same circle, again and again. Nothing slows down, not even time. Especially not time.

 

They get the water park CF they wanted and had to suffer for days through diet and gym hours for those topless, sleeveless shots. Jihoon almost throws a tantrum.

 

Woojin tries his luck at blond curled hair for one promotional cycle and bows to kill anyone who suggests him to bleach his hair in future.

 

Jinyoung gets caught hugging a girl by fans and Sungwoon almost dies of heart attack when he saw the articles on Pann, but it turned out to be his cousin who actually visited them at the dorm before she got photographed with Jinyoung. Jisung almost gets an aneurysm when Jinyoung lets it slip that he actually never hangs out with his then-girlfriend in public.

 

Sungwoon gets used to Daniel sleeping over in his room whenever they got assigned solo room when they are abroad, and Daniel gets used to the sneaky walks of shame back to his own room early in the morning. They get more lube and condoms and Sungwoon learns everything about Daniel’s body from where to kiss to how to thrust at a certain angle so Daniel would whimper and beg at Sungwoon to fuck him harder.

 

When autumn rolls around, all of them also get used to seeing “Private Meeting” in their individual calendars. They don’t talk about it out loud, but the end is near and their companies want to start preparing. Woojin and Daehwi would disappear into those “ _meetings_ ” for hours and come back with voice croaked. Everyone knows they had been recording for another round of debut as soon as possible but nobody says anything and the kids just thankfully drink the ginger tea Minhyun made them in silence. Even Sungwoon had met up with his company staff in the previous month more than he had in the entire last year.

 

No one says the “d” word, at least not in front of each other, like it is some sort of Voldemort incarnate, but everyone knows that it is on everyone else’s mind anyway.

  

* * *

 

 

Daniel gets casted in a travelling show in early October. Sungwoon is a little jealous – not at the opportunity, Daniel is the golden boy and is in demand more than the rest of them; he has made his peace with it. But, Daniel is travelling to Paris and that is the one country Sungwoon wants to go the most. They missed out on K-Con Paris because of some scheduling conflicts and their only concert in Europe was in London.

 

So, Sungwoon sulks a little but helps Daniel pack for his week long trip and sends him off with a quick kiss in the dark corner of the staircase.

 

He is in the office building, taking a break from the dance practice when Daniel calls. Daniel is calling from the kakao account he makes just for talking to Sungwoon which means he must want to talk in private, so Sungwoon excuses himself and sneaks out to the Accessible toilet on the ground floor. It is the only one in the entire building, probably there just to satisfy some building code regarding disability, and Sungwoon is ashamed to admit that he and Daniel had misused it far too many times over the previous year.

 

“Hey,” Sungwoon opens the video call to see Daniel smiling wide at him. “What’s up?”

 

“Dude, guess what?” Daniel says excitedly. “I won the rooming games and got a single room. Look at this shit.” He spins around the large nicely decorated room – he even got a balcony – and jumps a little.

 

“Wow, nice. Did you call just to brag?”

 

“Yeah,” Daniel giggles and throws himself onto the bed. “What are you doing?”

 

“Sweating buckets in practice.” Sungwoon wrinkles his nose.

 

“Sexy.” Daniel laughs. “Talking about sexy, I can’t believe we don’t get to fuck before I leave. The last time was what? Two weeks back?”

 

“Dude!” Sungwoon says in alarm. “Aren’t there cameras in the room?”

 

“They haven’t set them up yet. Don’t worry.” Daniel waves a hand. “There were some problems with the hotel. The staff says they’ll come set up in like an hour.”

 

“Hmm,” Sungwoon mumbles in muted relief. “What’s on schedule?”

 

“Chill now, I guess. I am gonna take a shower soon before going down. We are reconvening for dinner.”

 

“So, you are in a single room by yourself with no cameras on and you have time to spare too?” Sungwoon laughs. “What a waste I am not there.”

 

“Well,” Daniel drawls. “Not really a waste.”

 

“Did you call me for phone sex, Daniel?”

 

Daniel beams. “What are you wearing?”

 

“You can see what I am wearing dumbass.” Sungwoon snorts and points at his sweat-soaked t-shirt.

 

“C’mon.” Daniel whines. “Play along. Be a little sexy.” He says in a ridiculous attempt at French accent. Daniel never listens to Sungwoon’s sound advice of never doing accents.

 

“Ok,” Sungwoon whispers low into the microphone. “Take off your pants.”

 

“Already?” Daniel raises an eyebrow. “Not even foreplay.”

 

Sungwoon rolls his eyes. Like Daniel does not know that ‘hurried’ and ‘sneaky’ are the two aspects of foundation on which their sex life is build upon. “Are you going to do it or not? I need to be back soon.”

 

“Fine, fine.” Daniel says and changes the phone into another hand while he takes his pants off with the other. “You are so bossy.”

 

“You like me bossy.” Sungwoon reminds him and Daniel shrugs in agreement.

 

It turns him on, to be honest, to think of Daniel in the middle of Paris, half naked and palming himself to the thoughts of Sungwoon, so Sungwoon tells Daniel just that. Just how sensual Sungwoon finds it, and maybe one day, Sungwoon will just watch Daniel stroking and fingering himself and lets him go on and on until Daniel cannot take it anymore and only then, maybe, Sungwoon will think about letting him come. Daniel groans low into the microphone, each breath getting shorter and shorter. The phone is face down on the bed next to him because he is not paying attention to it and all Sungwoon can see is a black screen, but Daniel’s noises are enough to urge him on although Sungwoon resisted. He is just focused on Daniel right now, saying the things Daniel likes to hear – like how good he is or how much Sungwoon wants to just hold him down and fuck him or maybe if he is in the mood, just sits on Daniel and rides him through his orgasm. Daniel comes soon enough, breath hitching in a familiar way and Sungwoon soothes him through it, listening to Daniel’s groans calm down.

 

“Did you come?” Daniel asks after he regains his breath.

 

“I’m good.” Sungwoon says. Truthfully he is hard but it will go away soon and he needs to be back in the practice room before someone sends out a search party. “You owe me one though.”

 

“Just wait till I get back.” Daniel promises.

 

“Where am I going to go?” Sungwoon laughs and hangs up, splashing cold water onto his face and neck and willing himself to calm down before making his way back.

 

“Where’d you go?” Seongwoo calls him over when Sungwoon opens the door to the practice room. “Daniel is calling from Paris. You almost missed him.”

 

“Is he now?” Sungwoon raises an eyebrow and tiptoes to look at the iPad the kids are gathering around. Sure enough, there is Daniel on the screen, smiling and talking a mile a minute like he hasn’t just come from Sungwoon’s voice 7 minutes ago.

 

“Sungwoon hyung,” Daniel waves at him cheerily when Sungwoon gets into the sightline of the camera. “Where were you?”

 

“Sneaking out to please my lover.” Sungwoon says sarcastically. Woojin snorts next to him.

 

Daniel laughs, too much for someone who is supposedly laughing at a lame joke, but then again, nobody is surprised because it is Daniel. Jaehwan cuts him off, asking if Daniel can get him the number of the rookie actress he is casted together with and Daniel laughs and bickers with him good-naturedly until the choreographer hyungs come back in from their break and tell them to practice from the top again, their groans accompanied by Daniel’s laughter over the phone.

 

* * *

 

“You are my favorite hyung.” Daehwi sings in a high voice, giving Daniel a high five.

 

“I thought I am your favorite hyung.” Jinyoung turns his head and says.

 

“You never bought me a ring.” Daehwi sticks his tongue out at him. Sungwoon laughs and opens the little box with his name on it to find a similar ring. He slips it onto his ring finger and it glides on snuggly.

 

“I can’t believe you got us _friendship rings._ ” Jaehwan says, holding the metal ring up to the light. “What are you? 7th grader?”

 

“Give it back then.” Daniel opens his palm in front of Jaehwan.

 

“Fuck off. It’s mine now.” Jaehwan says and slips it on.

 

“If I go to Paris now,” Seongwoo asks, leaning his butt against the table. “Would I find these rings selling for 2 euros in the tourist shops?”

 

“I got you all thoughtful presents.” Daniel rolls his eyes. “The least you can do is shut up and thank me. That’s why I only love Daehwi out of this sad bunch.”

 

“Aww, I love you too.” Daehwi says and leans down to hug Daniel from the back. Jaehwan snorts.

 

“I need to do his make up guys.” One of the make up artists comes over with a tool bag and says.

 

“You just landed.” Sungwoon says and looks at Daniel in his dark-circled glory. “You alright?”

 

“Yeah,” Daniel nods as the stylist clips his hair up. “I got some shut eye on the flight.”

 

Sungwoon sighs. He feels bad but there is nothing he can do so he just lets Daniel be and goes off to the changing room to get himself styled. The stylist hyungs already have rings and bracelets picked out for this video shoot so Sungwoon takes off Daniel’s ring and put it back into the box that it comes with, and that’s when he sees the tiny ‘300’ inscribed into the inner band of the ring.

 

Huh.

 

Daniel is dead on his feet when their night CF shoot is over so Sungwoon doesn’t have a chance to ask him, plus, he has some things to confirm from his end first. He checks both Jinyoung’s and Daehwi’s rings when they are back to dorm and both of theirs have similar smooth inner bands with no inscription. He also checks the date on which they won #1 on Inkigayo for their second round of promotion, does some math and yeah, last week marked the 300 days since he and Daniel has been.. whatever they have been.

 

Daniel does not make any remark about noticing it but apparently he did.

 

300 days. That’s roughly 10 months and that is a scary amount of time for Sungwoon. He has never hooked up with someone for this long. The longest thing he’s had was with a trainee from another agency a couple of years back, but even that was only for six or seven months and they hadn’t been exclusive. The guy was nothing comparable to Daniel either. They stopped because he left his agency to move to Australia and Sungwoon was only aware of that when he saw his instagram photos. He wasn’t particularly heartbroken back then anyway.

 

But this? This is different. Sungwoon runs his finger over the inscribed _300_ , and sighs before heading towards Daniel’s room.

 

Daniel is soundly asleep on his bed so Sungwoon goes to sit down next to Jisung in the opposite bunk bed. Jisung looks up from the iPad he is reading and scoots over when Sungwoon lies down next to him.

 

“He must have been really tired.” Sungwoon nods at Daniel and says.

 

“He even skipped dinner.” Jisung replies.

 

“What time do we have to get up for tomorrow recording?”

 

“4.” Jisung says. It is 45 minutes after midnight now. Seongwoo lets out a whiny groan from the top bed.

 

“You alright?” Jisung turns his face to Sungwoon and asks.

 

“Yeah,” Sungwoon answers softly. “I think I am screwed.”

 

Jisung puts down his iPad. “Is this about your agency?”

 

“Nah,” Sungwoon shakes his head. “Just in general.”

 

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Jisung says. “I mean I can’t always give you answer but I can at least listen.”

 

“Thanks hyung.” Sungwoon smiles but doesn’t say anything more. “I’m gonna go wash up and sleep.”

 

“Sure.” Jisung says after him unsurely. Sungwoon glances down at Daniel’s sleeping form on his way out. He looks like he doesn’t have a single care in the world.

  
Too bad, though, that Sungwoon has to break his heart soon.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Daniel grabs him by the wrist and pulls Sungwoon into one of the empty rooms in the big mansion that they are preparing to film their season greetings in. “Looks good on you.”

 

Sungwoon looks down to see Daniel stroking the ring on Sungwoon’s finger.

 

“Is it..” Sungwoon says. “…a 300-day present?”

 

Daniel grins. “You noticed! Half of me was thinking you won’t notice it and the other half was thinking you’d ask me what it is.”

 

“This is the kind of things only couples get for each other, no?” Sungwoon says.

 

“Not this shit again,” Daniel mutters. “If it helps, you didn’t get me anything in return so no, not a couple thing.”

 

“Let’s…” Sungwoon lets out a heavy sigh. “Let’s stop.”

 

Daniel drops his hand from Sungwoon’s finger. “It’s only October.”

 

“Yeah but I feel like things have been slipping out of control lately, don’t you?” Sungwoon asks pointlessly. Things have never been in control from the start. “Maybe it might be better for us if we just go back to being friends until the contract ends.”

 

“You always do that.” Daniel says. “Decide what is good for us.”

 

“I am just –”

 

“I’m not finished.” Daniel interrupts. “And whatever you think is good for us is usually what you want or what you think is right. What about me, huh? Do you ever think about what I might be feeling?”

 

“I do,” Sungwoon says desperately. “But what you want is not something that can happen, Daniel.”

 

“Why the fuck not?” Daniel yells and Sungwoon almost lifts his hand to cover his loud mouth. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to the same thing as me. Tell me you don’t want to be with me.”

 

“And where would you be telling the world you are with me, huh?” Sungwoon laughs bitterly. “Radio Star? Happy Together?”

 

“It’s the same shit argument as eight months ago.” Daniel rubs at his face. “You didn’t change at all.”

 

“Were you expecting me to?”

 

“I don’t know,” Daniel shrugs. “I was hoping, I guess, that I would be enough for you to at least fucking try.”

 

“Niel, I told you before –”

 

“Yes, I get it. You don’t need to play that fucking record again.” Daniel spits. “You know what? Maybe it is for the best. If you don’t even want to try, not even for me, what good is it for me to keep holding onto you?”

 

“I am sorry.” Sungwoon whispers.

 

“Don’t.” Daniel says stiffly. “You always were expecting this. It’s on me that I wasn’t.”

 

“Do you want this back?” Sungwoon asks, toying at the ring on his finger. He doesn’t want to, no, he doesn’t dare to look up at Daniel.

 

“Keep it,” Daniel replies. “Gonna be awkward if only the 10 of us are wearing it and public image is everything to you, isn’t it?”

 

Sungwoon doesn’t argue back. He deserves every stab and punch of words from Daniel right now, and if that makes Daniel feel better, Sungwoon is willing to bleed.

 

“Also,” Daniel says. “When we are pairing up later for the games, I’d appreciate if you don’t choose me.”

 

“Ok,” Sungwoon nods, and watches Daniel turn on his heels and leaves before his legs give out and he had to lean against the nearest chest of drawers. He wants to scream, cry and yell, but the tears won’t come out. He wonders if his heart really has hardened as much as Daniel seems to think it is.

 

He paired up with Jisung later on for the treasure hunt game segment they are filming. They ended up walking blindly in the dark in the basement to find some tokens for their meal. Sungwoon is too distracted to be thinking and helping out so Jisung had to do all the work.

 

“You alright?” Jisung asked once they climbed back up to the first floor, triumphantly holding the two tokens needed for meat. “That thing you were worried about. Did you fix it?”

 

Sungwoon just nods numbly. Yes, he fixed it. By breaking everything that matters.


	4. Chapter 4

If anyone notices that Daniel is distancing himself from Sungwoon, they are doing a good job pretending not to notice. To their credits though, Daniel is not acting that different when they are with other people or on camera – he is still friendly and cordial even if the warmth is gone and all Sungwoon can feel from him is the cold harshness.

 

Plus, the mood inside the group and even among their staff is tense these days. November has walked its way in and now they have a good six weeks before their contract ends and they are back to whoever they were before, albeit with more money and fame. They are about as busy as when they first debuted – which feels like a lifetime back – because the management wants to pack in a lot of things into the little times that they have. There are final rounds of tours, final fan signs, final award shows to attend and final concerts – everything they had done before but the word ‘final’ in front like a death sentence hanging over their head.

 

Taemin invited him to guest on one of the shows he is hosting and Sungwoon fought tooth and nails to go despite the 3-hours sleep schedule they are on. It is a low-key shoot, set at a restaurant and Sungwoon just has to eat and tries his best to be engaging, telling the other hosts about some of the anecdotes from his friendship with Taemin.

 

Taemin walks him out of the restaurant when the shoot is over, into the cold winter night.

 

“Thanks for coming. I know it was really late notice.”

 

Sungwoon smiles at him. “It’s alright, hyung. Thanks for inviting me.”

 

“Where’d your manager go?”

 

“He went to get the car.” Sungwoon shrugs and tightens the scarf around his neck. “It is impossible to park around this area.”

 

“I’ll wait with you.” Taemin says. “It was nice to, you know, not just hang, but actually work with you.”

 

“Yeah?” Sungwoon grins. “Gonna hook me up with more gigs later on?”

 

Taemin laughs. “We’ll see how the ratings for this one go.”

 

Sungwoon laughs along with him.

 

“Do you have any plan yet? I mean, for when your contract is over?”

 

Sungwoon shrugs. “Sort of. Bits and pieces. I’ve been talking with both the members, I mean, the Hotshot members and the staff a lot. We’ll probably aim for a comeback in February.”

 

“All the best, man.” Taemin holds out his hand and Sungwoon shakes it with a smile.

 

“Hyung,” he says, as Taemin stares into the Seoul’s night traffic. “Remember when you broke things off with me?”

 

Taemin gets silent for a while before looking over at Sungwoon. “That was a long time ago.”

 

“I know.” Sungwoon gives him a reassuring smile. “Just, when you did that, you said it was because I was falling too fast and you didn’t want to hurt me more than you need to.”

 

“I remember.”

 

“But,” Sungwoon sighs and a puff of air rises from his mouth into the cold air. “Did it hurt you?”

 

Taemin sighs. “A little. I didn’t like seeing you upset.”

 

“Right? But anything more than that? More than, you know, feeling bad for a friend.”

 

“Do you have a point you are going with this, Sungwoon?”

 

“I broke it off with someone.” Sungwoon says in a rush. “And, I don’t know, it reminds me of that time you broke my heart, but just, a lot worse. Everything just … sucks.” He finishes eloquently.

 

Taemin silently stares at him before stepping back a little. “I think that’s your manager’s car.”

 

“Right, yeah.” Sungwoon turns his head to see the familiar black van pulling up in front of the restaurant. “I better get going.”

 

“Sungwoon,” Taemin grabs at the sleeve of his coat. “When I broke things off with you, I wasn’t in love with you.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Yeah, but you are now, aren’t you?”

 

Sungwoon doesn’t answer because there is no point in confirming something he already knows the answer to.

 

“I should go.”

 

“Alright. You take care of yourself.” Taemin drops his hand. “You always are so bad at that.”

 

* * *

 

The end, when it comes, doesn’t go out on a bang but a whimper. At least on the private front. They spent 4 days in a row at the dome for their final concerts, with fireworks and applauses and tears. It is, if Sungwoon is being honest, a perfect ending if he could ever ask for one.

 

But when everyone else went home and it is just the 11 of them left in the dorm, frantically packing one and a half years worth of life back into tiny suitcases, sorting out which clothing item is whose and which appliance is brought by which person, it doesn’t really feel that grand.

 

Seongwoo brings out the whiskey bottle he bought at the airport on their last overseas trip and even Minhyun grabs a cup. Daehwi tries a sip which turns into three and throws his stomach out before falling asleep, curled up next to Jinyoung who opted for a simple beer.

 

They talk about stupid things like how much trash they are leaving behind so the cleaning ladies will have to curse them out for the last time or if they are going to be charged for the dent in the wall from that one time Guanlin played around with a baseball bat and accidentally smacked the wall or who is gonna have to call whom sunbae when they run into each other at music shows later. Sungwoon keeps up with the conversation, but more so with his glass of whiskey even after the mixer runs out, and soon he is in the washroom, head under the cold shower to chase away the dizziness in his brain.

 

When he finally feels like the world is no longer spinning on its axis and turns off the shower, he becomes aware of Daniel leaning casually on the sink, looking at him. Sungwoon has to blink a couple of times to make sure that he wasn’t just seeing things.

 

“Your shirt is all wet.” Daniel says, throwing a towel at him.

 

“It’ll dry.” Sungwoon says, and rubs the towel all over his wet hair. “Do you need the toilet?”

 

“Do you know what’s funny?” Daniel asks, words slurred out of his mouth. Sungwoon wonders how many cups he’s had. “You were so adamant that we were just fucking but we don’t even get to fuck before we ended things.”

 

“Niel.” Sungwoon says in warning and locks the door. Daniel is on top of him in an instant, large hands pulling up Sungwoon’s face and whiskey-soaked tongue forcing its way into Sungwoon’s mouth. “You are drunk.”

 

“You are not even gonna give me a last fuck?” Daniel laughs and stumbles a little. “You are so mean.”

 

“Not here, ok?” Sungwoon says, holding Daniel at arm’s length.

 

“Where then?” Daniel gives a toothy grin. “The toilet at M Countdown studio? You particularly liked that one, I remember.”

 

Sungwoon sighs. “If you want to sleep with me for the last time, I am not going to do it in some cramped bathroom, Daniel.”

 

“So, where then?” Daniel asks again.

 

“I don’t know. Note it down as an IOU and cash it out later.” Sungwoon says and pushes Daniel into the shower. “Get your head straight first.”

 

Daniel comes out of the washroom a good 15 minutes later and heads into his bedroom before coming back out with a new shirt on and another folded shirt in his hand.

 

“Here,” he throws the shirt in his hand at Sungwoon’s head. “Your shirt is still wet.”

 

“Have you still not packed?” Jisung grunts from where he is lying on top of a sleeping Minhyun. “We are getting picked up at 8, you know?”

 

“I know.” Daniel answers nonchalantly. “I’ll do it later.”

 

Jisung grumbles something and fells back asleep. Sungwoon just silently changes into Daniel’s dry and warm shirt, and it smells so familiarly Daniel that Sungwoon feels like he can actually die in it. Daniel looks at Sungwoon for a while before averting his eyes and asking Seongwoo to share the last remnant of whiskey inside the bottle.

 

Seongwoo splits the left over whiskey into three glasses – for himself, Daniel and Sungwoon, the last standing/conscious men left.

 

“This place always feels way smaller than it actually is.” Seongwoo raises his glass and says, looking around at their surroundings.

 

“Or maybe we just felt that we were bigger than we actually were.” Daniel says.

 

“I have no idea what that means, but that sounds deep.” Seongwoo slurs and clumsily knocks his glass against Sungwoon’s and Daniel’s. “To us.”

 

To us, indeed.

 

* * *

 

Sungwoon asks three days off and gets surprised when he is actually granted. Guess that’s what happened when you paid off all your trainee debts and actually has some upper hand in contract renegotiation.

 

He plans to spend all three days holed up in his childhood room back in Ilsan, licking his wounds, as Taehyun calls it. It is just him trying to regroup and gets himself back in the game. And he did just that, gorging himself on his grandma’s cooking the first day and sleeping through the second morning, only getting up to pee and to assure his grandpa that he is, in fact, not dead. He also sneaks out the few rice wine bottles his grandpa has saved up behind the fridge.

 

Jihoon sends a message to the group chat around dinner time, with an image of a new restaurant opening and saying they should try it out for the next time they order supper. He quickly follows up with an “Oh” and a “Sorry” like he completely forgets that there will not be any more late night supper eaten around the tiny coffee table back at the dorm, Jihoon fighting Woojin for the last piece of chicken and Guanlin eventually stealing it.

 

He turns the phone off and gulps down more wine, throwing his head back on the bed and probably looking like a real poster boy of hot mess right now. He toys at the phone, flipping it in between his fingers and calls Daniel before he can change his mind.

 

Daniel answers with a simple hey, and Sungwoon doesn’t even realize how much he misses Daniel. How much he is going to miss Daniel.

 

“Cash it out.” Sungwoon says into the phone.

 

“What?”

 

“The other night,” Sungwoon chokes out. “You said you wanted one last fuck. I’m in Ilsan. Come over.”

 

“I can’t.” Daniel sighs. “I’m back in Busan.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah, I took a short break.”

 

“I will …” Sungwoon says, biting at his lower lip. “Can I come over?”

 

The line goes silent for a while. “It’s a three-hour train ride.”

 

“I know.”

 

Daniel doesn’t reply anything and Sungwoon feels like, no, he does know for sure that he has stepped over some of the boundary lines.

 

“I am sorry.” Sungwoon says. “I’m just …”

 

“Come if you are sure.” Daniel tells him. “But I am leaving for Seoul tomorrow evening.”

 

“Are you sure?” Sungwoon asks.

 

“Yeah, my mom would love to see you.”

 

“Ok,” Sungwoon nods and takes one more sip of the wine because it is the only thing keeping him from overthinking right now.

 

He gets dressed, tells his grandparents that he needs to go back to Seoul, back to Hotshot dorm for the night and grabs a cab straight to Seoul station. He spends the entire train ride fidgeting and biting at his fingernails until his thumb starts to bleed, and reaches Busan around midnight.

 

He has been to Daniel’s place a couple of times before, when they performed in Busan and Mrs. Kang invited them over for dinner, but the closed metal door to the Kangs’ apartment has never seemed this daunting.

 

He knocks on it anyway because he has already made it all the way here.

 

“Sungwoon!” Mrs. Kang opens the door in surprise. “Daniel said you were coming over but I thought it’d be in the morning.”

 

“Hi,” Sungwoon greets her with a bow, trying his best not to think that he is here because he wants to fuck her son. “Sorry. I know it’s too sudden but it just happens.”

 

“That’s alright.” Mrs. Kang says and waves him in. “Come in. Daniel! Sungwoon is here.”

 

Daniel comes out of his room, looking soft and just so comfortable.

 

“Hey.”

 

“You can sleep over in Daniel’s room.” Mrs. Kang says. “Let me go see if I still have some of those eggrolls left.”

 

“No, no, it’s fine.” Sungwoon stops her. “I’ve already eaten. Don’t worry about me.”

 

Mrs. Kang insists on giving him food until Sungwoon gives in and takes some watermelon from her before she says good night and goes into her room.

 

“You know there’s no point arguing with her when it comes to food.” Daniel says and takes a watermelon slice from the plate Sungwoon is holding. “C’mon.”

 

Sungwoon follows him into the bedroom. He’s been here before but it feels lived-in now, Daniel’s clothes thrown all over the floor together with half opened jelly packets and there is a cat sleeping in Daniel’s open duffle bag.

 

“You actually came,” Daniel says, sitting down on his bed.

 

“I said I would.” Sungwoon shrugs and puts down the watermelon plate on the stack of manhwa books next to Daniel’s computer.

 

“That’s a long way to come for a booty call.” Daniel says.

 

“Now or never, right?” Sungwoon laughs nervously and goes to sit down next to Daniel. Daniel looks him in the eyes before leaning in and kissing him and god, Sungwoon has missed this.

 

“If I sleep with you tonight,” Daniel whispers. “Is this gonna be the last time I’d ever had you?”

 

“I-” Sungwoon does not have an answer to that.

 

“Because I won’t if that’s the case.”

 

“I came all the way here!”

 

Daniel shrugs and leans back to lie down on his bed. “Take care of it yourself. I’ll return you the favor from that one phone sex. But I’m still gonna hold one out on you. For future.”

 

Sungwoon sighs out loud and lies down next to Daniel. “How do we even get here, dude?”

 

“I took the KTX and I am assuming you did the same.” Sungwoon does not even grant Daniel a laugh for his lame joke, and just stares at the glow in the dark stars stuck on the ceiling because Daniel is an actual 13 years old.

 

“Do you know what I want the most when we were together?” Daniel asks after a while.

 

“What?”

 

“I want us to just sleep until the morning and not sneak off back to our own place or bed or whatever. Just wake up together and you know, get on with the day. It’s kind of boring.”

 

Sungwoon traces the outline of Daniel’s side profile with his eyes. “I am not going to leave until tomorrow.”

 

Daniel turns his head to look at him. “I don’t have an extra pillow.”

 

“That’s alright.” Sungwoon says and leans his head down when Daniel offers him his arm.

 

“I feel like you are going to freak out on me soon.” Daniel mutters.

 

“Not tonight.” Sungwoon whispers back and Daniel laughs, low rumbles rippled across his chest, and Sungwoon feels like Daniel’s laugh might as well be his favorite sound in the universe.

 

There is a tiny meow and Sungwoon looks over to see the sleeping cat from earlier has jumped onto the bed and makes its way over onto Sungwoon’s body before it finds a good place to sleep on top of Sungwoon’s belly.

 

“She likes you.” Daniel smiles and reaches over to pat her on the head, scratching tiny strokes behind her ears.

 

“You do too, don’t you?” Sungwoon asks, not looking at Daniel. “I feel like you like me a lot.”

 

“Maybe I do.” Daniel’s hand stills.

 

“I feel like I don’t deserve it.” Sungwoon stares out of the curtain less window; the night lights of Busan sky structures blink back at him.

 

“That’s not up to you.” Daniel whispers.

 

“Are you not scared?” Sungwoon asks him.

 

“Have you met me?” Daniel snorts. “I am scared of everything. But I can learn to live with my fears if something is worth it.”

 

Sungwoon doesn’t reply.

 

* * *

 

Sungwoon does not wake up in Daniel’s arms. Instead, he wakes up to the blinding light shining through the window and a cat licking at his ankle. He looks around the empty room confusedly before heading into the attached bathroom to wash up.

  
Daniel is just coming in, dressed in a tracksuit when Sungwoon gets out of the bathroom.

 

“Hey,” Daniel greets him. “Sorry. I promised my mum I’d go up the mountain with her in the morning and you were deep asleep.”

 

“I thought I dreamt the alarm.” Sungwoon says and looks down at his phone. It is already past 11.

 

“C’mon.” Daniel nods at the door. “Come say hi to my dad.”

 

Sungwoon does, has lunch with Daniel’s family and helps pack Daniel because he wanted to bring a few things from home to his new dorm and gets ready to leave for Seoul by 5.

 

The train is not that packed because it is not yet peak hours so he easily got a ticket next to Daniel’s already-booked ticket in the VIP section.

 

“Oh hey, you like train rides, right?” Daniel says as he leads them to their seats. “Too bad they stop selling those steamed peanuts.”

 

“They were over priced anyway.” Sungwoon shrugs and sits down next to Daniel.

 

There are a suspiciously large amount of young girls casually passing by their aisle while taking selfies right around their seats. Daniel puts a mask on and hands one to Sungwoon.

 

“Your agency is ok, right?” Sungwoon asks. “Us hanging out, I mean. This is probably gonna spread on SNS.”

 

“Are you kidding me?” Daniel laughs. “They gave me and Jisung hyung a long lecture on keeping our Wanna One connections alive.”

 

“Right.” Sungwoon nods.

 

“We are actually eating dinner with Seongwoo hyung on Friday.” Daniel says. “Do you wanna join?”

 

“I’m fully booked for the upcoming week.” Sungwoon says truthfully. “Recording and dance sessions.”

 

“I see.” Daniel says, voice muffled by the mask.

 

“I should have some free time next week though.” Sungwoon adds in. “If you want to, I don’t know, hang out or something.”

 

“We’ll see.” Daniel says non-committedly.

 

Some girl interrupts them, asking them to sign her phone case and Daniel turns into the nation’s first love in an instant, smiling and chatting with her until the train attendant comes and asks her to leave since she does not hold a VIP ticket.

 

“That’s what gonna be like if you are with me, you know?” Sungwoon asks, watching the girl and the attendant leave.

 

“What is?”

 

“Getting recognized in public. People taking sneak photos of us thinking we don’t notice. Not being able to hold hands or go on dates.” Sungwoon shrugs. “Take your pick.”

 

“I think that’s gonna be true whether I am with you or someone else.”

 

Sungwoon does not dwell on the _someone else_ partas much as he wants to and nods in silence to agree.

 

“Look, you said these train rides are your ideal dates. I mean, did you ever imagine, like an actual date on trains?” Daniel asks, probably to sidetrack the conversation.

 

“I guess?” Sungwoon nods. “I don’t know. When I thought I can’t be into anyone else but girls, I thought about, you know, taking my girlfriend on a trip or something. Just some stupid shit kids in puberty think about. Why are you asking?”

 

“I mean, we are here, on a train, and I am not exactly a girlfriend, and I am sure we are not reenacting whatever ideal scenario you had it played out in your head, right? Like you said, we can’t do things couples do and everyone was looking at us when we boarded the train.”

 

“I guess.” Sungwoon agrees.

 

“Does it make you any less happy?”

 

Sungwoon looks out of the train window, chasing his eyes across the horizon where the sun is setting and he can almost feel the warm content down in the pits of his stomach, like the way he felt all those summers back. He feels like he would even be able to smell his grandma’s favorite perfume if he closes his eyes. He shifts his gaze to Daniel – he can only see Daniel’s eyes out between the black mask and the lowered cap but that is more than enough.

 

“No,” he answers. “No, it doesn’t.”

 

* * *

 

Sungwoon follows Daniel down to the underground parking lot at the Seoul station where Daniel’s manager is supposed to pick him up since Daniel offers to drop Sungwoon off at a taxi stand slightly out of the way and less crowded. Daniel casually throws an arm around Sungwoon’s shoulder like he had done a thousands time before and Sungwoon melts into it like he always does.

 

“Can you wait for me?” Sungwoon asks softly as Daniel looks around for his manager.

 

“Hmm?” Daniel replies absentmindedly. “Do you want me to wait until you got a cab?”

 

“No.” Sungwoon sighs. “Look, I am trying my best not to be so… scared and gives you something you deserve. I just … I just need a little time. I am not good at this.”

 

“You are the most people’s person I know.” Daniel says. “You are always so outgoing and friendly and warm. You are good at this.”

 

“No, see. I am a people’s person, you are right.” Sungwoon replies. “But I don’t know how to be a person’s person.”

 

“Do you want to be?” Daniel asks.

 

“Yeah,” Sungwoon nods. “Or at least I want to try. For you.”

 

“You know that’s what I have been always asking you, right?” Daniel turns his body sideway so he is facing Sungwoon. “I am not asking you to jump off a cliff. I am not ready to either. But I am already at the edge and I need to you to at least be next to me.”

 

“Coffee next week?” Sungwoon smiles up at him. “You always like the baked cheese tarts at that café in Yongsan.”

 

Daniel smiles brightly and pulls him into a hug. Sungwoon wants to protest, saying there could be people close by but he doesn’t, and lets himself enjoy the feeling of just having Daniel here, around him and all over him.

 

Maybe this is the first step of his probably long learning journey, but as they say, the first step is what matters the most, right?


End file.
